


A Convoluted Train of Plot

by lionessvalenti



Category: Agents of Cracked
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, New York City, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-20
Updated: 2013-08-07
Packaged: 2017-12-05 22:31:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/728627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionessvalenti/pseuds/lionessvalenti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After successfully faking their deaths in New York City for two years, Michael and Dan are found by the Order and the assassin who is sent to kill them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Secret of the 5th Avenue Sbarro

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place in the same universe as my story, Ghosts of the East Coast, but it doesn't need to be read to understand this one. As far as content goes, I've taken all my cues from the show. Some things, like sex scenes, may be more graphic and less implied, but it's all the same sort of antics and language you find in canon.  
> With many thanks to BettyLouAwesome for beta reading, and to Aofunk for listening and all the encouragement.

Before the dawn of time, there were Chiefs.

Now, well past the dawn of time, there are still Chiefs. They are immortal, ever constant. They are like the stars in the sky, and the sun and the moon. They are, and always will be.

And the girl thought their mansion smelled like cheese doodles. Was that a brand or just another name for cheese puffs? Maybe it was a regional brand. She couldn't remember. Maybe she was just thinking of Cheeto's.

Her stomach growled. Maybe she was just hungry.

She opened the door at the end of the hall and a gust of cold air blew her hair back. She stepped into the dark room. There was a long table and each seat was illuminated by a white spotlight. Every seat was filled, except two. One had a laptop sitting on the table beneath the light and the other seat was empty. And, if she wasn't mistaken, one of the filled seats was taken by a dog.

"Step into the light," said the one woman at the table.

"What light?" asked the girl. She was just standing there in the dark. A few seconds passed and another spotlight turned on, right over her head. The girl squinted her eyes. It was harder to see them now, but maybe that was the point. "That's better, I guess."

"Are you afraid?" asked one of the men. His voice sounded like a weird trumpet.

"No," the girl replied, shoving her hands in her jeans pockets.

"Are you intimidated?" asked a different man. He sounded squirrely for a big guy.

She shook her head. "No, not really. Usually I just get an envelope with a name in it. All of this ceremony seems really unnecessary, and we've seen each other's faces, which is what I try to avoid. Unless you want me to be scared. I could try, but that's not easy. You're a bunch of people at a table. It's actually kind of boring. I was expecting more when I came to the mansion in Canada. But then again, it's Canada."

"We have a job for you," said the woman.

"Yeah, I kind of thought that's why I was here," the girl replied. "Why did that take so long? Are you going to give me a name or do I have to kill everyone I come across until I get the right one?"

"Would you do that?" asked the squirrely man, maybe a little too enthusiastically.

The girl rolled her eyes. "No, because I charge per person. You have no idea how much that would cost you. And you do know that I require half the payment up front, right? And cash. Or maybe gold. You're kinda weird. You might pay in gold."

"Silence!" roared the man with the trumpety voice, and even the girl jumped.

"You will get your money," said the woman. She raised her chin, and maybe it was the light, but it looked like her skin was turning blue. "And you will kill Michael Swaim and Daniel O'Brien."

The girl widened her eyes. She'd heard that they had died a couple years ago, something she read online, but you couldn't believe everything you read on the internet. She knew why she was here now. Why they chose her, and she nodded. "I can do that."

* * *

There had been a time in his life when Daniel O'Brien (also known as DOB, or simply "Dan") woke up in the morning and thought, "Yes, this is going to be a normal day." And it wasn't just that he expected normalcy, he actually thought that in an attempt to will it into existence. After he started his work with Cracked, no day was normal. Now, nearly five years later, Dan discovered a new kind of normal: ridiculous insanity.

On that morning, a Tuesday, Dan didn't think anything, not exactly, when he woke up. He had been asleep on his stomach when he felt the cold, smooth plastic of a tiny car being pushed across his bare ass. It was probably sad that he knew exactly what that felt like. He didn't even have to open his eyes.

"No," he mumbled into his pillow, the cotton slightly damp under his cheek from drool. "Stop it."

"Awww, come on," Michael said. The car came to a stop about an inch away from Dan's asscrack, but he didn't pull it away. "You love the Hot Wheels."

"No, I don't," Dan said, propping himself up on an elbow and twisting at the waist to look up at Michael. " _You_ love the Hot Wheels. They're _your_ sex toys. You have to know that by now, and if I have to go back to that hospital one more time because of a toy car in my ass, those nurses will laugh at me. Again."

"Fine." Michael threw the car and it bounced off the wall, hitting the floor with a soft thud. "If I can't put the car in your ass, I'm going to have to put my dick there."

Dan almost protested, just out of habit of protesting to Michael's suggestions. He opened his mouth, then closed it. Michael raised his eyebrows, like he knew what Dan was going to do. He probably did. Somehow, under all the crazy and stupid, Michael knew Dan better than anyone.

"Yes," Dan said finally. "You can put your dick in there."

If Michael was giving some sort of warning before sex, then they were going in the right direction, but there wasn't actually any progress. What happened one day meant nothing compared to what could happen the next. Dan had decided years ago that he was just going to deal with whatever Michael did or he would probably go insane (except with the Hot Wheels, as there had to be a line somewhere). He wasn't sure that his words would ever really connect. If Dan had morning wood, he could pretty much guarantee that he'd wake up with his cock in Michael's ass or mouth.

Or sometimes he'd find toys in weird places. It was hit or miss, but not a bad way to start the day.

The sex itself -- it was transcendent. Dan didn't know that the human body in general, let alone _his_ body, could do some of the things Michael managed to coax out of it with what seemed like no effort whatsoever. Even when the fingers Michael plunged into Dan's mouth tasted like Doritos and the room smelled like farts and dirty laundry, Dan didn't care. It was that good.

After two years, Dan had adjusted to the sight of Michael's weird dick, but the feeling of it, whether it was pressed against him while they lay together in bed, or inside of him, seemed to always change. He wasn't sure if it was actually changing -- it always looked the same -- or if it was just somehow magic, like the rest of Michael. Magic, Dan surmised, was probably the only thing that kept him from strangling Michael, or possibly himself.

Michael gnawed on Dan's shoulder as they fucked, his teeth digging in harder with each thrust. "Shit," Dan muttered. He propped himself up with one elbow and with his free hand, reached behind himself to grab Michael around the forearm.

"No shit here, buddy," Michael replied brightly. "It's all clean. Have you been taking those fiber pills?"

"How is that even -- that's not appropriate for -- anything -- do you even know what those do? You live on corn dogs and cotton candy." Dan sucked in a sharp breath as Michael bit down so hard he might have drawn blood. "Those roasted nuts from the street vendor."

"Yeah, and they promote a healthy colon."

"Corn dogs?" That didn't make any sense, but Dan didn't care so much. "Why are we talking about this? How are we talking about this?"

"You started it," Michael said, and he bit the back of Dan's neck.

"Yow!" Dan squirmed from the surprise and the pain, and then he came all over the blankets. His front half flopped forward, his face against the pillow, as Michael continued to have his way with the back half. Dan didn't mind at all, his mind and body satisfied, and his shoulder sore.

Michael finished with a strangled cry and then fell down next to Dan. He curled up under Dan's armpit and took a deep breath. "Mmmmmm. I love you."

Dan smiled and ruffled Michael's hair. "Yeah." He glanced over at the digital clock on the floor. 12:32. "Oh, shit. I have to go to work."

"Me too," Michael said, throwing his arms above his head, his hand smacking against Dan's face, and he stretched like a cat.

Michael didn't have a job. Most of the time, Dan didn't know, nor did he want to know, what Michael did all day. He knew Mike spent a lot of time on the subway and hanging out in Washington Square Park for whatever reason. Sometimes, he did come home with money given to him by strangers who thought he was homeless or a weird performance artist (and considering the performance artists in New York City, the fact that he was weird said something). And then there was the one day he came home covered in blood and Dan could only _hope_ it was animal. Which was only a little better than the alternative.

"I gotta meet a guy about a boat," Michael explained.

"I didn't ask," Dan replied, "but what are you going to do with a boat? No one has boats in Brooklyn. We don't even have a car. Where are you going to put a boat?"

"The boat's not for me. We're going to be on the boat, like in the song. I'm on a boat."

"Just stay away from the boat wax, I mean it."

"Awww. What about heroin? He also sells heroin."

"That's even worse for you!"

"So the boat wax is okay."

"No!"

"Windex?"

Dan opened his mouth and then shook his head. "Fine, fine, yes, Windex is fine. At least it's legal."

"Boat wax is legal."

Physically unable to continue the conversation further, Dan untangled himself from Michael's arms and rolled out of bed. He took a few steps toward the door and he could feel the semen rolling down the back of his thigh. He knew Michael was good with condoms when he slept with other people, so he tried not to worry about it. He just hoped that Mike didn't have some kind of super-deity sperm that could somehow impregnate him. He'd stopped dismissing crazy notions a long time ago.

Dan inspected his new shoulder wound in the bathroom mirror. It was red and raw, but it didn't appear there was any actual bloodshed. He smiled, fingering the tender flesh. He kind of liked it.

After his shower, Dan got dressed in his khakis and Sbarro polo shirt, complete with "My name is Dan" plastic name tag. It wasn't a great job, but it paid the bills. And, to his credit, Dan was the assistant manager. Not that it was very difficult. Dan kept his head down, worked hard, and was the only employee who both spoke English and had worked there for more than three months.

"Hey, Mike, I'm heading out." Dan walked into the living room where Michael was sitting on the floor with his collection of toys and coloring books. "Are you coming or staying? I can get you some pizza if you want."

Michael's eyes widened. "Pizza!" He scrambled to his feet, and started for the door, but Dan grabbed him around the arm to stop him.

"You need to put on some real clothes."

"Awww, but--"

"No buts. Clothes."

Michael, in his boxer shorts and tatty bathrobe, stomped into the bedroom. Dan could hear a few things getting slammed around, but a few minutes later, Michael reappeared wearing purple plaid pants and a yellow tee shirt. "Let's do this!"

"What did you break?" Dan asked.

"Nothing." He slipped on his red sunglasses that had been hanging around his neck by a black nylon rope. "Let's go."

Despite not believing that for a second, Dan opened the door and they went downstairs. It was sunny in Park Slope, the sky bright blue, and not a cloud in sight. Springtime in New York was wonderful. The air still held a chill, but it was warm in the sunshine. Everywhere people were taking their dogs on extra long walks and smiling as they talked too loudly on their cell phones with their hands full of coffees in those blue and white cups.

"Check her out," Michael said, nodding toward a chubby redhead at an ATM by the window inside a McDonald's. "I bet she'd go for some Danburger."

Dan wrinkled his brow. "Why would I sleep with her? We just had sex this morning."

"Why _wouldn't_ you? She's hot, she's got nerd glasses, and I think she'd lower her standards for you."

It was funny how Dan barely even heard the insults anymore. "So, what does that say about you? We have sex all the time."

"Daniel," Michael said with a smile, "you flatter me, but we both know I have sex with everyone. I had sex with that trash can last week. But don't worry, I used a condom."

Dan nodded. "Yes, that was my first concern. How do you have sex with a trash can?"

"All the little holes," Michael replied. "You have to be patient and take it slow. You don't want to rush it. But that's why you only do it with the wire ones. The plastic ones give you cancer."

"But how do you _fit_? Those holes are tiny."

"Oh, you make it fit."

They took the subway into Manhattan. Dan sat in one of the orange plastic seats, his vinyl messenger bag on his lap, while Michael swung around on one of the metal poles with the movement of the train. A couple of times, Dan was pretty sure Michael was going to slam his face right into the bar, but he spent a lot of time on the train. Dan just sort of hoped he knew what he was doing.

That was the one extreme of Michael that Dan had never figured out, even after all these years: did he know exactly what he was doing all the time, or not at all? For every moment of lunacy, there could also be total clarity. It just depended on the day. Or even the hour.

They got off at Times Square, which was always a risk with Michael, who could be easily distracted by the bright lights and all of the tourists. However, Dan kept a hold of his hand (half romantic gesture, half pure necessity), and literally led him across town to Fifth, and then past the library.

"I hate those guys," Michael said, eyeing the lions outside the building. "How would you like a sexy, east coast librarian? If we went in there, I could get you one of those."

"I'm fine," Dan replied, rolling his eyes. "I don't need your help getting me women. And all the women in there are probably eighty years old."

"Who cares? I know you have all those weird sexual hang-ups," Michael said, gesturing wildly with one hand, "but you have to get over it. I mean, they can't be old, they can't be fat, they can't be animals. Quadrupeds have feelings too, Daniel."

"I never said they _couldn't_ be fat. I'd just prefer it if they weren't."

"When was the last time you had sex with a woman?"

Dan paused. It was a valid question. While Michael fucked anyone and everyone who would consent (and a few trash cans that couldn't), Dan just... didn't. Not counting one very awkward threesome, the last time he'd had sex with a woman was before he worked for Cracked. He did get to second base with a hot bartender one time, but then he never saw or heard from her again. He wasn't sure why it was so important, anyway. He was getting laid, women or not.

Instead of answering, he avoided the question. "Do you even know what a librarian is?"

"Sure," Michael replied with a shrug. "It's one of those -- they live in the Amazon, they snap people like twigs. You know, Dan, it's hard to remember things before breakfast."

"That's not -- you're thinking of a barbarian."

"It's not the same thing?"

"No, not even close. That was a bit in the Weird Al movie."

"That's a good movie."

Dan let go of Michael's hand to wrap an arm around his waist. "Yeah, it's a funny one. Do you want to know what a librarian is?"

"Does it have to do with anything that will bore me until my brain melts out my ears?"

"Assuming that hasn't already happened, yes."

"Then, no. I don't care."

They got to Sbarro fifteen minutes before Dan's shift began, so he bought them each a slice of pizza and a large soda to share using his employee discount, and they sat down at a sticky table. Dan frowned. This was exactly the sort of thing he hated to find in his store. Was he going to have to have another employee meeting about keeping up on table maintenance? He knew the latest crop of college students and immigrants spoke English, no matter how much they tried to pretend they didn't, including Rodney, who Dan knew for a fact was from Wisconsin.

The truth, that Dan was eager to ignore, was that no one respected him and they spent a lot of time laughing at him behind his back. More than once, he ended up with a very mature "kick me" sign on on his back, and every time Dan came home with one, Michael kicked him, confirming that, yes, Michael could read.

"I'll have someone take care of this," he said, as the napkin he used to wipe at the table just turned to shredded bits. He smiled at Michael, who seemed determined to shove the entire slice of pizza in his mouth at once. "What are you going to do after the boat?"

"Rowhr roorh marfs a bish," Michael replied, the crust hanging out of his mouth.

"You're right, I should have waited until you swallowed."

"Thars whash she shard."

"That joke's not funny anymore. I don't know that it was ever funny."

Michael spat the crust out onto his red and green paper plate and swallowed. "Are you going to eat that?"

Dan looked down at his pizza. He'd only taken one bite out of it, but he ate a lot of pizza with the job. If he didn't have to look at another slice of melted processed cheese ever again, it would be okay. He pushed the plate across the table. "All yours."

Michael grabbed the pizza and shoved it in his mouth.

Dan propped his elbow on the table and rested his chin on his hand as he watched Michael eat. He took a sip of the soda and smiled. This was kind of nice.

After Michael finished eating, Dan walked outside with him. "I won't be home until after eleven, so you have fun with your boat guy."

Michael grabbed Dan around the shoulders and pulled him up into a kiss, the classic sort of Michael kiss with lots of tongue and teeth. They could be dangerous, as Dan had come away from more than one with a bloody nose, but it was amazing. Dan moaned and squeezed his fists around the front of Michael's tee shirt, and the sounds of the traffic around them faded away.

Until a guy in a hoodie called them faggots as he walked by, loud enough, not only for them to hear, but to break up the kiss.

Michael shoved Dan away and spun around. "You're the faggot!" he snapped. "Asshole!"

"Mike, hey." Dan took a hold of Michael's arm to keep him from going after the guy. "It's fine, it's okay."

"Did you hear what that guy called you?"

Dan actually smiled. Of course it wasn't directed at Michael at all. No one would ever call _him_ a fag to his face. "Yeah, I know. It's fine."

"I guess you're used to that sort of thing," Michael said. He smiled understandingly and wiped his greasy fingers along Dan's cheek.

"Exactly." Dan slipped his fingers into the belt loops on Michael's pants and pulled him closer. "C'mere, buddy."

Michael wrapped his arms and Dan's neck and pulled him into a hug. Dan rested his head against Michael's chest. He had a few minutes before he had to get into work, so maybe a calm half a second would be --

Dan jumped at the sound of a gun going off. He ducked, pulling Michael to the ground with him. He knew there were guns in the city. In fact, they had several because Michael kept bringing them home, but this was different. This was on the street and right in front of them. Was it a mugging? Had someone been shot?

"What the fuck?" Michael asked, eyes blazing. "Where's that fag now?"

"I don't think it was that guy," Dan replied as another shot went off. He kept his head down, and that was when he saw the bullet rolling along the sidewalk. "What the..." He looked up at the wall, and he could see the mark in the stone where the bullet had hit. Inches from where Michael's head had been moments before.

"They're shooting at us," Dan said. It wasn't the first time someone had shot at them, but the first time since they'd come to the East Coast. He grabbed Michael's hand. "We gotta run."

"But the boat!" Michael protested.

"Fuck the boat! Let's move!" Dan snapped. He practically yanked Michael's arm out of its socket as he dragged him away from the Sbarro. They weaved through the crowd, some of them on the ground like they had been moments before, and others still walking, not letting something silly like a gunshot get in their way.

They ran around the corner onto 47th street and Dan pulled Michael along behind him. "How'd they find us?" he asked.

"Dan, I don't know what you're worried about," Michael said. "We're already dead. We've been dead for years."

"No, we're...." Dan took a deep breath and started walking as quickly as possible toward Sixth. It was nearly impossible to explain that they hadn't been dead the whole time, not when Michael had it in his head that they were. "We just have to run. We have to get out of New York. We have to find someplace else to go."

"And live in a grain silo?" Michael asked.

"Maybe. Let's just focus on leaving." Dan could feel his palms sweating, his skin slipping against Michael's. It had been years since they left California. Maybe Dan had let his guard down, maybe they had slipped up. Or, most likely, Michael had done something that stirred up too much attention, but it wasn't the time for blame.

The traffic on Sixth Avenue was moving and thick, and there was no way through it until the light changed. Dan, still clinging to Michael's hand, was looking over his shoulder to see if anyone was behind them.

"Get in the car, Dan."

Dan spun around to find a green station wagon pulled up to the curb with the driver's side window rolled down and the driver was--

"B-Tone?" Dan asked. He dropped Michael's hand, possibly more shocked by the sudden appearance of the ruggedly handsome robot than the fact that he had just been shot at a minute before. Was that the influence of Michael or of living in New York? "What the hell are you doing here? You're reprogrammed. You're in California. How did you find us?"

"Just get in the car if you want to live, and I'll explain everything on the way, but right now we have to go."

Dan shook his head. "No way. You tried to kill us."

"I'm not B-Tone," said the guy who looked a hell of a lot like B-Tone. Though to be fair, he didn't have an eye patch, and the last time Dan had seen him, he was wearing two of them (and, possibly, a third, elsewhere). "The Chief sent me."

"Gasp!" Michael pushed Dan aside. "The Chief. I heard if you piss him off, he'll go back in time and kill your grandmother. But he'll bone her first because she's still hot back then. It's before she's old and wrinkly and all droopy boobed."

"Wouldn't it be easier to just kill the guy and not deal with all that space-time continuum stuff?" Dan asked. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he realized that this wasn't the most important thing to ask, but that didn't stop him. "That seems like a waste of time and perfectly good resources."

"He can go back in time. He has all the time in the world."

"Yeah, I guess so, but--"

"Idiots!"

Dan and Michael both snapped their attention to not-B-Tone.

"You can either trust me and get in the car, or she will find you in this crowd and shoot you both in the head. I think you want to go with option A because that one doesn't end with you dying in the next thirty seconds. Get in the car."

Dan looked at Michael and shrugged. Things were suddenly crazier than usual, and when that happened, Dan had learned, it meant they were only going to get worse before they got better. There was no way staying was the best option. "Let's go," Dan said.

"Shotgun!" Michael exclaimed as he ran around the station wagon and pulled open the front door. There was nothing else for Dan to do but climb into the back seat.

"Where are we going?" he asked. "Who _are_ you?"

Not-B-Tone grinned as he gunned the engine and pulled into the traffic. "I'm your only hope."


	2. The Worst Dead Guy Car Chase Ever

Dan sat as patiently as he could in the backseat as Not-T-Bone weaved around cabs, narrowly missed hitting pedestrians, and floored it to get through yellow lights only to slam on the brakes to keep from hitting the cars that were only starting up from the traffic light in front of them. Dan not only had the memories of how to drive taken from him by the Chief when he worked for Cracked, but despite his best efforts, he couldn't relearn it either. He was pretty sure, however, that this wasn't how it was supposed to go. But he stayed quiet and tried to keep his lunch down.

Michael, on the other hand, seemed to be having a good time. He stuck his head out the window like a dog and shouted at the people in the crosswalk to get the fuck out of the way and called out bizarre, outdated ethnic slurs that weren't even applicable to the people he was shouting at.

They were halfway through Harlem when Dan finally asked, "Are you going to tell us where we're going? Or who you are? You said you were going to tell us. You're a robot, right?"

"Yes, I'm a robot. They call me C-Note."

Dan blinked. He meant to keep asking questions, but instead said, "Wow, they just keep giving you guys worse and worse names, don't they?"

C-Note shrugged. "It'd been narrowed down to either that or G-Stone. I think I got lucky."

Dan nodded his agreement. "How many security robots did they make? How did you get here? Why aren't you on the west coast?"

"Just the two," C-Note replied. He lay his hand on the horn, but didn't slow down for the jaywalking pedestrians. "If you want to get technical about it, I'm made out of refurbished T-Bone parts. You don't think they'd actually bury perfect, beautiful, slightly damaged robot, do you? We don't come cheap, though you would think we did based on how much money I make. And the work we do really sucks. I've spent the last two years in New York following you idiots around."

"Following us around? So, you are going to kill us."

"No, Dan, I'm not. I'm on your side, here. If I wanted to kill you, the two of you would be dead. You would have been dead about two years ago. I would have gone into your apartment while you slept and slit your throats. No one would ever have known I was there, and you two are so inconsequential to the rest of the world that it wouldn't be until your bodies started stinking up the place that anyone would even notice you were dead."

Dan stared at the back of C-Note's head. That seemed that way too many details to be innocent. He wondered how many times C-Note had thought about murdering them in their sleep. "And the Chief sent you."

"Do you think he actually thought that the two of you could successfully fake your deaths and stay in hiding?" C-Note swerved into the next lane, cutting off a cab, and zoomed through a red light. Horns blared behind them. "The Chief sent me here to keep an eye on you, to keep you guys safe. Do you really think your measly Sbarro pay takes care of your bills? Who do you think pays for Michael's property damage? Who do you think covered up your roommate's death? I'm a security robot, Dan. This is my job. This is my one function. And it's a good thing, too, or you guys would be the Order's mincemeat by now."

It was probably giving himself too much credit to be affronted, but Dan liked to give himself the benefit of the doubt, sometimes. "So, you've just been hanging around. And we never noticed?"

"I'm good at what I do. And you guys are really boring -- Michael! Jesus Christ, stop that! Get your head back in the car." C-Note grabbed the back of Michael's shirt and yanked him in to stop of him from shouting, "Plastic paddies!" at two black men standing on a corner. Michael slapped at him, but it didn't seem to bother C-Note, who didn't let go until Michael was sitting down.

C-Note pushed the button to roll up the window. "You guys attract too much attention to yourselves. You're lucky the Order only caught onto you now."

"That's why we came to New York," Dan said. He looked out the window at the city flying past them, _way_ faster than the speed limit. "People don't care about weird here."

"But you can still get noticed," C-Note said. "And there were members of the Order who never really believed you were dead. All it took was one hint of doubt and the right story about a guy in a bunny mask holding up a department store for everything behind the perfume counter."

Michael twisted around in his seat. "Dan, what did you do?"

"That was you!" Dan protested. "And we gave everything back. Except the stuff that was broken. The apartment hasn't smelled the same since."

"Doesn't matter." C-Note slammed on the brakes as they were forced to stop at this traffic light, and Dan whacked his head against the back of the driver's seat. "It was enough for them to look into it, and now they've hired themselves an assassin to kill you both. She's good, and on top of that, she knows all of your strengths -- the few you have -- and your weaknesses. She knows how you think."

"Is she hot?" Michael asked.

"You tell me, you're the one who fucked her."

"Well, that doesn't narrow it down at all."

Dan blinked and leaned forward so he could get a better look at Michael. "You fucked our assassin? When?"

"Yesterday, maybe?" Michael ventured to guess. "I got invited to this orgy, and I wasn't going to go, but at the last second, Pikachu Paul called me up and he insisted. I don't know if you've ever tried to argue with a Pokémon, but you don't want to do it. They have powers and it can get really messy. But if she was there, it's going to be weird, because I don't remember what happened."

"If she was there, you'd be dead," Dan said, but at the same time, he wasn't sure how anyone could possibly try to kill Michael. He still wasn't convinced that Michael could actually die, and he felt certain that the Council would know that. Dan was certain, however, that _he_ could die at any second, so as long as someone was after Michael, they were both in danger. "Who the hell is she?"

C-Note glanced in the rearview mirror with his piercing blue eyes. "Shit. Look for yourself."

Dan turned around and looked out the back window and into the car behind them. His eyes widened as he stared at the familiar face gazing back at him. "Kelly Wheeler?" he asked, possibly at her, or C-Note, or maybe just for himself. "Kelly Wheeler is the assassin?"

Kelly smiled at him when she made eye contact, and raised a hand to wave at him with one finger, like they were friends, or maybe he was a baby who need to be stimulated. Her hand disappeared and then surfaced again, this time, holding a gun.

"Holy shit!" Dan spun around and hit the back of C-Note's seat. "She has a gun! Go, go, go, go!"

"Of course she has a gun, who do you think was shooting at you?" C-Note asked. He was incredibly calm throughout all of this.

"She has it out right now and she's right behind us. She is going to shoot me right now, I think."

It was well timed because the light turned green, and C-Note floored it. However, they were still driving a fifteen year old station wagon, so the tires squealed against the road before they were able to even get started, let alone reach any sort of speed. Dan craned his neck to see that Kelly was still right behind them.

"Kelly Wheeler," Michael mused, rubbing his hand along his jaw. "Where do I know that name? She tried to kill me that one time, right?"

"She's trying to kill you right now!" Dan cried. "Remember that time we had the -- we had the threesome with her?"

Michael twisted around so he look at Dan. "Yesterday? Was she the one in the Snoopy costume?"

"No, she was the hog -- no, I mean, she wasn't there. _I_ wasn't there. This was when we worked for Cracked. I can't believe you don't remember this."

He shrugged. "I dunno. This is boring. Can we go on the subway?"

"Oh, Jesus, no," C-Note said as he made a hard left, causing Dan, who should have put on his seat belt, to slam into the door. "I have wasted so much of my life on the goddamn subway, running around after you. Fuck, no. You're staying in the car."

Michael let out a guttural cry and banged his head against the window. "Ow."

Usually, Dan would attend to Michael, but the attempt on his life was really a more pressing matter. He slid between the two seats so he could talk to C-Note, and maybe it would seem like they were on the same level if they were looking at each other. "We need to get out of Manhattan," he said. "We're going to get stopped at another traffic light and she will shoot."

"You think I don't know that?" C-Note asked, gripping the steering wheel tighter. "We're almost to the GWB. If we can get into Jersey, we'll be all right." He paused, and then added, "Words never before uttered."

"There's nothing wrong with Jersey," Dan said, a little offended.

C-Note scowled. "Everything's wrong with Jersey."

Dan made a face. "Hey, how did you know we'd slept with Kelly? Didn't exactly broadcast that one."

"Yeah, you did, it's on the internet," C-Note replied. He weaved the car into the bike lane and narrowly missed plowing a cyclist before swinging back into the correct lane in front of a cab. "The whole thing. It's _hilarious_."

" _What_?"

"It's all over the internet. 'Worst Dead Guy Threesome Ever', or whatever they're calling it these days. It's its own meme, and there are reaction videos of people throwing up when they watch it. You should be really embarrassed."

That was no problem. Dan spent most of his life in some state of humiliation. He looked to his right. "Michael, did you film the sex we had with Kelly and put it on the internet? Do you know how to do that?"

"Of course I don't," Michael replied, indignantly, though it was unclear if that was because because Dan implied he would film the sex or that Dan thought he could upload a video to the internet. "What kind of evil puppet master do you think I am?"  
"Most days, I don't know," Dan replied. He sank back into his seat and tried not to think about all the people who may have seen this video. His family, who all thought he was dead, and now they could laugh at him for eternity, never knowing it was his own, personal hell. On the bright side, he was probably going to die in the very near future. With that in mind, he looked out the back of the car and saw no sign of Kelly. "I think we lost her."

C-Note shook his head. "There's no way. It'd be too easy."

"Couldn't something just be easy?" Dan asked.

"Nothing's ever easy."

Dan didn't look out the window. If he had, he would have seen Kelly's car coming toward them at incredible speed from the side. No, all Dan felt was the impact of her car hitting the side of the station wagon.

They spun around in a complete 180, and Dan, who really should have been wearing his seatbelt, was flung across the car and banged his head against the window. Woozy, he put his hand to his head and it came away with a little blood on it. Not a lot. He'd lived with Michael long enough to not be worried about just a little blood.

He pulled himself up and noticed that they were currently on the sidewalk, but no people appeared to be dead, and across the street was Kelly's car. He fumbled around for his glasses, that had ended up on the floor, and put them on his face. He looked over at Kelly's car, the front of it completely crushed. She was slumped over the steering wheel. Was she knocked out or dead?

"Dan," Michael said, sounding scared for the first time all day, "I think Thelonius is dead."

Dan looked up and, sure enough, C-Note was out cold, but now wasn't the right time to explain everything that was both wrong and right about the statement. Michael wasn't really one for nuance. He didn't think C-Note could die anyway, being a robot. In fact, the only one in the car who _could_ die was Dan.

"The car's still running," Dan realized aloud. He'd thought that he was the one shaking, but it was just the rumble of the old engine. How were they not moving forward? He doubted C-Note had time to put the car into park before he was knocked out... or rebooting? He didn't know what the correct robot terminology he should be using. Either way, they had keep moving.

"Mike, help me get C-Note into the backseat. You're going to have to drive us out of here."

Dan was more than a little scared of Michael driving. He'd made a point to never be alone in a car with him for just this reason, but on the other hand, Michael spent his whole life before New York in LA where he drove all the time and managed not to die. That didn't account for the possible trail of bodies that followed him. However, they didn't have any other options, and they had to do this _fast_.

Dan tried to open the door, but the door was smashed into the inside of the car, and there was no way he could open it. He slid across the seat to the passenger side and climbed out of the car.

"Are you okay?" asked an elderly woman.

"I'm fine," Dan replied, looking back at Kelly's car. She wasn't in there. "I'm great. Couldn't be better, thanks." He ran around the car and was thankful to see that the damage seemed to be located to the back of the car where it'd been hit. They had run head-on into a fire hydrant, which was why the car wasn't moving, but the damage seemed minimal. He was able to get the front door open. "Mike, help me. I don't know where Kelly went."

"I'll cut her," Michael said, his eyes serious. He reached under the seat he was sitting in and produced a large knife.

"How the fuck did you know that was there?"

"I put it there," Michael replied. His gaze didn't waver. "I will cut her."

"I'd rather if we just didn't die." Dan unbuckled C-Note's seat belt and grabbed him around the armpits and tried to heave him upward, but he was solid as a rock. Was that from being a robot, or was he just that ripped? He wasn't breathing, but did he need to breathe? "Help me!"

Maybe it was the shrill tone of his voice, but he seemed to shake Michael out of the killing zone. Michael dropped the knife and crawled on the seat, sitting up on his knees. He grabbed C-Note around the ass and helped Dan heave the body between the seats and into the back. C-Note's body slumped against the seat and then fell into the floor well.

There wasn't time to worry about it. "Michael, you're going to have to drive," Dan said. He knew he'd said it earlier, but he was probably going to have to say it again. "Michael!" He snapped his fingers in Michael's face. "Get in the driver's seat."

"Oh, right." Michael climbed over the center console and settled in front of the steering wheel. "All right. Which one of these makes the car go?" He pushed the button to turn on the radio.

Maybe they would have been better off if Dan, who would have been like a fifteen year old tearing up the breaks, was driving. He slammed the door shut and looked around. Where had Kelly gone? She didn't have any reservations about about shooting openly in the streets, but maybe since there wasn't element of surprise now she had a new strategy.

The last time Dan had seen Kelly, she had clearly been unpredictable, but now she had a gun. Probably pointed at his head. Right. Now.

Dan ducked as he ran around to the passenger side of the car and climbed in. "Get us out of here!"

In a very rare moment of clarity, Michael shifted the car into reverse and slammed his foot on the gas. He backed right into another car, and this time Dan put on his seat belt. He twisted around, still looking for Kelly. She had to be nearby.

"Jesus, Michael, get us out of here!"

Michael shifted and gunned the engine. He grinned quite frighteningly. "Man, driving a car makes me want to kill a hooker."

Dan opened his mouth, but no words came out. He had too many questions. Did he think this was a video game? How many hookers did Michael kill in LA?

"Hey, baby?"

Dan pulled his head back as he looked over at Michael incredulously. They never used pet names. Sometimes Michael called him by a different names, but Dan was pretty sure that was just him not remembering. "Yeah?"

"Where are we going?"

"I don't know. Just get us out of the city. We'll figure the rest out later." Dan thought about C-Note in the backseat. He must have had some kind of plan. Dan sure hoped he wasn't dead back there. Dan stared out the window and then he grabbed Michael's arm. He pointed at the sign with his free hand. "There, there, go there! George Washington Bridge!"

Michael jerked the wheel and turned. Horns blared behind them, and he stuck his hand out the window to politely flip them off. He glanced in the rearview mirror. "We have a tail."

"What?" Dan twisted around in his seat and looked through the back window. Sure enough, there was a car right behind them. He squinted and he was pretty sure he could make out Kelly. Why did she spend time getting a new car when she could have been shooting them? "Drive faster. Lose her."

"God, Dan, don't act like I've never been in a car chase before." Michael swerved around another car and Kelly followed right after them, but Michael slammed the car into the concrete barrier between the lanes. Sparks flew off the side of the car, and there was a scraping noise that sent chills up Dan's back like fingernails on a chalkboard.

"Stay on the road!" Dan shouted.

"Don't yell at me!" Michael replied, tears springing to his eyes.

"Well, stay on the road!"

"I would if you weren't yelling at me!"

Dan closed his mouth. Fine. He turned around to look at Kelly's car, still on their tail. There was nothing like feeling so completely helpless. He couldn't do anything but watch Michael treat this like _Grand Theft Auto_ and Kelly move closer and closer to them.

It wasn't the first time Dan had been sure he was going to die. And not just today.

"Shouldn't she be shooting at us or something?" Dan asked.

"She's trying to run us off the road. Or follow us until we run out of gas, and then shoot us. At least that's what I would do. If I had a gun. I'd rather use a knife. Obviously."

Sometimes Dan wondered why he shared a bed with this man. And other times he wondered how he was still alive after all this time when there were so many chances for Michael to kill him while he slept.

Michael slammed the brakes as the traffic suddenly stopped when they were only a few yards away from Jersey. Dan's seat belt locked right at the throat. He grasped the vinyl and tried to yank it away, but the seat belt was doing its job well.

"What do we do now?" he asked in a strangled voice.

"Get the knife!" Michael exclaimed.

Dan started at the loud whirring noise from the back seat. He turned as well as he could with the seat belt holding him in his seat and first looked to see where Kelly was, but there was a blue sedan behind them now. Did they lose her? There were a few loud beeps from inside the car, and Dan looked down at where C-Note seemed to be stirring.

"What the fuck is going on?" C-Note asked as he sat up. "Where are we?"

"What happened to you?" Dan asked.

"We're on a bridge!" Michael replied jovially. He pointed straight ahead. "There's Jersey."

"I had to reboot," C-Note said, climbing out of the floor well, "when she hit the car."

"I _knew_ it was reboot!" Dan said, even though he hadn't actually said that to anyone earlier.

C-Note ignored him. "Where's Wheeler?"

Dan shook his head. "I don't know. She was right behind us, but now she's... she could be anywhere. With rifles. She can't be too far away, and now we're just sitting here like ducks."

" _Duck_!" Michael screamed.

"No, ducks. Sitting ducks."

"No!" Michael said, still pointing ahead of them, shaking his hand. "DUCK!"

Dan, half expecting a literal duck, looked out the windshield and he could see Kelly standing on top of a minivan about two cars ahead of them, and she was staring right at them. How did she get there? She'd been behind them, and the traffic! He pressed the button to release the seat belt and slid down in his seat. "What the hell are we supposed to do now?"

"I'm taking care of this right now," C-Note said. He tried to open the door on the passenger side, and then slammed his shoulder against it.

"No, no, that side got damaged in the crash," Dan whispered loudly, as if Kelly wouldn't see them if he was just quiet enough. "You have to use the driver's side."

"Shut up!" C-Note barked, clearly aware that the volume of his voice had nothing to do with whether or not they'd been spotted. He slid across the bench seat and opened the door. He got out of the car and slammed the door shut. He started walking down the bridge, his arms in the air. "Hey, bitch! You want these assholes? Come and get 'em, but gotta get through me!"

"What the hell is he doing?" Dan asked.

"He's fighting! I want to fight." Michael let his foot off the brake as she started to climb out of the car, but Dan grabbed him around his tee shirt.

"No! Stay!" Dan hissed. With his other hand he shifted the car into the park before they could run into the car in front of them. "Let C-Note handle this."

"I want to kill her!" Michael shouted, clawing helplessly at the glass.

Dan looked into the back seat where his bag was sitting. He always kept some tranquilizers in there just in case, but he wasn't sure if he could reach. Not without Michael getting out of the car, though it seemed like Michael didn't remember how doors worked.

"Oh, come on," Kelly called to C-Note. "Are you really going to fight a girl?"

"You better fucking believe it!" C-Note climbed on top of the car in front of them, to the screaming dismay of the car's owner. He pounded his chest. "Bring it on, bitch!"

Dan wondered why Kelly wasn't just shooting C-Note, but he realized it was for the exact same reason she got a new car instead of shooting them on the street: she was visible. She wanted to get them either when she was out of sight, or they were.

Kelly seemed to brace herself on the top of the van, maybe waiting for an attack, but it wasn't that at all. She bent her knees and then sprang from the roof of the minivan and slammed her body right into C-Note's.

The roof of the car in front of them seemed to dent, and the driver screamed even louder. Kelly slammed her elbow into C-Note's face. He grabbed her around the hips and they rolled from the roof of the car and onto the bridge. The traffic lurched forward a foot, the drivers unaware, or simply not bothered, by the fist fight happening in front of them.

Now that they were between the cars, Dan couldn't see what C-Note and Kelly were doing, but he could hear their grunts over the sounds of the running cars. For a moment, he wasn't sure if they were fighting or having sex down there.

"You hit me in the _boob_!" Kelly snapped, and Dan still wasn't sure.

There was the sound of metal against metal, and Kelly sprang up, taking a few steps toward their car, before falling on her face, right outside Dan's door. C-Note, with a chunk missing from his forehead, revealing his robot face, climbed atop Kelly's back. He grabbed her hair and slammed her face onto the ground.

"Come on and fight me!" C-Note shouted. "Don't tell me you're knocked out already!"

"The point is to knock her out!" Dan said through the glass. C-Note looked up at him and glared.

"Shut up!"

"They're over there?" Michael climbed over Dan's lap and looked out the passenger side window. His hand landed right on Dan's crotch. Dan yelped from the sudden pressure on his dick, and it was... a little arousing. He should have better self control, or at least know Michael's effect on him.

"Kick her ass!" Michael screamed.

"That's what--" C-Note's words were cut off as Kelly managed to knock him off as she twisted over onto her back and kneeing him in the side. He slapped her across the face. "I'm trying to do!"

C-Note scrambled to his feet. He grabbed Kelly around the waist and then slung her over his shoulder. She kicked, her foot making contact with his stomach, but he didn't stop, walking her across the lanes and promptly threw her over the side of the bridge.

"Holy shit!" Dan exclaimed, as Michael cheered loudly in his ear.

C-Note walked back to the car and encouraged Michael into the back seat before sliding into the driver's seat. He glanced in the rearview mirror and scowled at his exposed mechanics. "Bitch," he muttered.

"Did you just kill her? Is Kelly dead?" Dan didn't like it that she was trying to kill them, but he didn't want her dead. He'd known her since they were fourteen. He just wanted her to... go away.

"We could only be so lucky," C-Note replied. "No, she's hanging off the side of the bridge right now. We need to get this traffic to move to we can get out of here before she climbs up. She's a pain in the ass."

Michael tried to open the passenger side door in the back. "I want to see her hanging there!"

"Hey, Mike, there's some tranqs in my bag. Have fun," Dan said, twisted halfway around, just glad that the door wouldn't open. He looked back to C-Note. "Where are we going?"

"Far, far away," C-Note replied.

"C3PO!" Michael exclaimed, digging around in Dan's bag. "Is that your robot name?"

C-Note growled and pointed at his head wound. "Does that look like _Star Wars_ to you? Shut the fuck up, Michael."

Dan sighed as he crossed his arms over his chest and scrunched down in his seat. This was going to be a long drive to wherever they were going.


	3. The Revenge of Robo-Rape

Dan was able to doze off for a couple of hours while C-Note drove. Michael had gotten into the tranquilizers, so now he was drowsily conscious, muttering no more nonsense than usual.

"I hate sleeping in the car," Dan said, feeling cotton-headed. He looked around, and they were in some city, but they all looked the same with their strip malls, and McDonald's, and Targets. "Where are we?"

"We're going through Schenectady," C-Note replied, readjusting his hands on the wheel.

Dan's mouth felt gross from sleep, and he suddenly realized that all of his belongings, save the clothes on his back (his Sbarro uniform, of all things) and the few items in his vinyl messenger bag, were still in the city. "I don't have a toothbrush. I don't have anything."

"You think I'm unprepared?" C-Note asked, and Dan opened his mouth, but realized it was clearly a rhetorical question. "I've got backpacks full of clothes and supplies for both of you. This has always been a contingency plan, Daniel. I've been ready for this since you left LA."

"Fuck you, Holly!" Michael muttered in his daze, banging his head against the window.

Dan blinked and then shook his head. It didn't matter what Michael was saying. He was placid, and that was good for a long car ride. Michael was easily bored, and Dan wasn't sure that C-Note thought to pack paper and crayons.

"So you have a plan?" Dan asked.

C-Note nodded. "The Chiefs have converged in southern Canada. They're waiting until you and Michael are dead. This is priority number one for them. I'm going to set the two of you up where no one will be able to find you, and then do what I have to do to convince the Chiefs that I've disposed of you. For all they know, I'm B-Tone. Or at least, that's what we're hoping."

"We're?" Dan repeated. "You and the Chief. Where is he? Our Chief, I mean. Why isn't he here to help us? He sent you to help us, but he can't show up himself?"

"He's been in hiding for weeks."

"Weeks? _Weeks_? He's know about this for _weeks_? Why anyone didn't tell us? Why are we the last to know? It's just our lives!"

"You knew when it was necessary for you to know," C-Note snapped. "There wasn't any reason to get Michael all spooked and weird. And the other Chiefs know that he set up Cracked to hide Michael from them. They know Michael's his son. The Chief is strong, but not against the others, not if they're united."

"But he can't die. It's not like they can kill him."

"I fucked him in his sleep," Michael muttered, and then shoved his thumb in his mouth.

C-Note raised an eyebrow at Dan, and Dan shrugged. "That probably happened," he said glumly. Probably more than once, but C-Note didn't need to know that. "Please continue."

"No, as far as we know, Chiefs can't die," C-Note said, "but there are other ways they can make life for each other very difficult. Ever heard of Prometheus?"

Dan's eyes widened. He'd never thought about it like that. "So, you're just going to tell them that we're dead? And then what?"

"I'll take you somewhere else. Somewhere in the country, South Dakota, where Michael can't hurt anyone. This is your third and final chance, Dan. If you guys fuck this up, there's no other way to fix it. After the second time you fake your death, you have to make it stick. They won't believe you a third time. They'd be demanding heads. Your literal head."

"You know Michael's head explodes, right?"

C-Note lifted a perfectly shaped eyebrow. "Good to know."

Dan didn't like the sound of that and wondered if maybe he should have kept his mouth shut. He was willing to go along with this, but he didn't have any reason to trust C-Note.

It was a long drive, with C-Note taking back roads, and after a while, and Dan saw signs telling them they were going to Syracuse before they began heading north again.

Dan didn't even realize he'd been asleep when he woke up with a start. It was dark inside the car with only a single headlight from the station wagon lighting the way in front of them. Dan peered out the windshield and there were trees right in front of them.

"The fuck?" Dan muttered. The whole car shook and bounced as C-Note maneuvered them between the trees. "We're driving in a forest. Where the hell are we?"

"The Adirondacks," C-Note said. "We're on the outskirts of the park. There's nobody here for miles."

"Aren't there _roads_?"

"Not where we want to go. If we can keep you away from people, then maybe Michael won't attract any attention."

Dan frowned. Michael attracted attention no matter where he was, and the Order was supernatural. They'd be able to find him if they were looking for him hard enough.

"I like woods!" Michael said from the back seat, apparently wide awake now. "We can live in the woods for years. I know how to skin rabbits and squirrels."

Dan twisted around in his seat to look at Michael, just by the console lights. "And how do you expect to catch a rabbit or a squirrel?" It was possible that C-Note packed guns, in fact, Dan expected that, but he doubted the guns would be left with them.

Michael stared blankly at Dan. "The same way I catch cats in the city."

Dan opened his mouth and then closed it again. There wasn't a good response to that. He turned back to C-Note. "How long as we going to be out here?"

"A week," C-Note replied. "Maybe less."

Nodding, Dan leaned back in the bucket seat. A week in the middle of nowhere. He could do that, even if that meant sleeping outside. There were bugs and spiders, not to mention bears and mountain lions. It could get below freezing up here this time of year. C-Note had to have prepared for that. They made sleeping bags for sub-zero temperatures, and if nothing else, Michael was like a furnace and liked to cuddle.

C-Note parked the car and shut it off, but left the lights on. "We're going to set up camp here. Either one of you know how to set up a tent?"

Dan blinked at him, and glanced back at Michael who was shaking his head.

"Fantastic," C-Note muttered as he got out of the car. "I have to do everything."

"Man, what's his problem?" Michael asked.

"I don't know," Dan said, mostly out of kindness toward Michael. This wasn't the time to explain social cues. It wouldn't be any use anyway. It wasn't like he hadn't tried before.

The back hatch popped open and C-Note stuck his head in. "Come on, idiots. Make yourself useful. I'll set up the tent and you can unload the rest of the stuff back here."

Dan opened the car door and was hit with the chilly air. He took a deep breath and everything smelled decidedly _outdoorsy_. You couldn't even get that in the park, not the subtle hints of pine and dirt. He got to his feet and walked around the length of the car, keeping a hand on it so he wouldn't fall over or trip over anything.

It seemed like C-Note really had them prepared for anything. Along with two stuffed backpacks, each with a sleeping bag strapped to the bottom, there was a camp stove and two battery powered lanterns. There was another bag, which Dan assumed was full of food. He raised his eyebrows as he picked up a racket from the back and held it up to Michael, who had joined him at the back of the car.

"What do you think this for?"

"Bears?" Michael suggested.

"He's going to hit _bears_ with a tennis racket?"

Michael shrugged. "Moose. Wolves? Elephants. Lions."

"Okay, now you're just naming animals."

"Vultures."

Dan picked up one of the surprisingly heavy backpacks and thrust it in Michael's arms. "Here, take this over to C-Note."

With Michael gone, Dan slung the other backpack over his shoulders and gathered the stove and lanterns up in his arms. He walked around the other side of the car toward where Michael and C-Note were standing in the beam of the single headlight. C-Note already had the tent set up. How did he do that so fast?

Oh, right. He's a robot.

Dan set the lanterns down on the ground and looked at the tent. It was nothing but a tiny dome. "Are we all going to sleep in there?"

"Fuck no," C-Note said. "That's for you guys. I'm going to stay in the car."

"Do robots sleep?" Michael asked. "Is it like when I turn my phone off?"

C-Note furrowed his brow. "It's not like the phone, not exactly. I'm going to power down and use the car battery to charge my cells. They need to be replaced, so I only have about a day's worth of power anymore."

Michael cocked his head to the side. "Where's your outlet? It's your ass, isn't it? You put the plug in your ass."

"That's a rude question," C-Note said, shoving a finger in Michael's face. "So, don't ask it."

Michael was cross-eyed looking at the finger, and then slowly leaned forward, tongue out.

"No." C-Note pulled his hand away. He stooped down and scooped up one of the lanterns. He held it out to either one of them who would take it. "Take this. You think you idiots can gather up some sticks for a fire? You go that way, and I'll go the other. Don't go too far. Make sure you can see the lights from the car. I don't want you getting lost out here."

It was almost like he cared. Dan let the backpack drop from his shoulders and grabbed the lantern. "Let's go, Mike."

Even by the bright white light of the lantern, it was hard to see. Without streetlights or the glow from buildings or cars, it was _dark_. Dan didn't know if the moon was full or not, but that wouldn't have even mattered, not with the thick tree cover.

"I bet these woods are full of psycho killers," Michael mused. "How many bodies do you think you could bury out here? Like a thousand? A _million_? Ten?"

Dan snapped a long stick in half and placed both pieces in Michael's outstretched arms. "I only see one psycho here."

Michael didn't seem aware that Dan had spoken, staring off into the distance. "And no one could hear you scream."

"Are you planning on killing me tonight?" It wasn't the first time Dan had asked that question. It was up there in asking what Michael wanted for dinner or if he was the one who clogged up the toilet with his massive shit in commonplace questions.

"Daniel, I think we both know that I don't plan anything." Michael laughed, sounding like a demented tommy gun. "But I don't like the look of that Thelonious."

"That's not--" Dan sighed and shook his head. "I don't know about him, either, but we don't have a lot of choice. He protected us from Kelly, and I can't think of any reason he would do that except for the orders of the Chief, so I guess he's on our side."

"And he has a butt plug."

"You can't remember his name, but you can remember that. Of course."

"Do you think there are bears out here?" Michael asked as Dan placed a small log in his arms. "Moose? Vultures? Sasquatch? Baboons. Penguins."

"Please stop naming animals," Dan said. "Sasquatch isn't even real."

"You didn't think I was real until you met me."

Dan considered that for a second. It was a strangely valid point.

They got back to the camp and C-Note started a fire. Dan tried not to think about bears or Sasquatch, or psycho killers. He didn't think that thing about fire keeping animals away was true, and it definitely didn't keep killers away.

They ate beef jerky and canned beans, which meant their tent would be warm all night with the smell of Micheal's farts. Dan dropped his spoon back in his can and set it on the ground. He looked across the fire at C-Note. "How long are you going to stay with us?"

"Tomorrow. I'll leave the day after," C-Note replied, poking the fire with a stick. "I need to make sure Wheeler hasn't tracked us up here before I leave."

"Is that likely?"

"I'll cut her," Michael said.

"It's possible," C-Note said, ignoring Michael. "We won't know unless she shows up. But if you guys stay here, lay low, there shouldn't be any problems. There's food and plenty of small animals for Michael to rip apart."

Michael gave Dan a sultry grin. "You know what that means."  
Dan stared at him out of the corner of his eye for a few moments, and then turned to C-Note. "Laying low isn't exactly our specialty."

"No shit, but..." C-Note sighed. "You're the only one who has any control over him. Just take care of it, will you?"

Dan felt his chest swell with the prospect of responsibility. He nodded. "Of course I will."

After they doused the fire, Michael and Dan crawled into the tent while C-Note retreated into the car. Dan didn't change out of his clothes, but he did take off his Sbarro name tag. There wasn't any use in wearing that anymore. He wasn't going back.

They were able to zip their sleeping bags together, and Dan smiled, finding it rather toasty in there with Michael, even with the smell. Sometimes cuddling had its benefits.

Michael wrapped his arms around Dan's waist. "This is fun," he said.

"Yeah, on the run from an assassin, who was hired by the council of gods who want to kill us," Dan muttered. "I think... we're probably going to die."

After being quiet for a few seconds, Michael pressed a kiss to Dan's cheek. He wasn't licking Dan's face or being gross. It was sweet and unexpected.

"What was that for?" Dan asked, somewhat amazed.

"I put that threesome video on the internet," Michael replied.

Dan felt his stomach lurch. He'd forgotten about that. However, he forced a smile into the darkness. "No surprise there."

* * *

When Dan woke up, Michael was gone. Dan tried to read his watch, but between his bleary eyes and his glasses still sitting in the corner of the tent, it just looked like a blur. He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes and cracked his neck before putting on his glasses. It was a little after nine.

He changed out of his clothes from yesterday and put on a pair of jeans and a green sweatshirt over a blue tee. His hands were already freezing as he climbed out of the tent. No one was around, but at least the car was still there. He would have hated to have been left behind in general, let alone here of all places.

Despite being so remote, it was beautiful. Everywhere he looked, there were trees, lush and green with spring. A touch of frost crunched underfoot as he walked away from the campsite.

Thankful for the privacy, Dan pissed against a tree and discovered exactly how cold his hands were. He yawned so widely his jaw hurt. He was just zipping up when there was a crash from behind him.

"What the fuck?" Dan asked as he spun around, still trying to get his zipper up all the way. "Michael? C-Note?" He hesitated and then whispered, "Sasquatch?"

There was another crash, and Dan held his breath. What if Michael and C-Note were dead? It seemed unlikely that out of the three of them he would be the last one standing, but where _were_ they?

That was when Dan heard Michael's laughter. It was definitely coming from in front of him (was that east?). Well, that meant Michael wasn't dead, but that didn't mean there wasn't danger.

Dan went over to the car and popped open the back hatch. There had to be a weapon in there somewhere, but there was nothing but the bag of food and the tennis racket. He paused, considering how ridiculous he might look and then picked up the racket.

It was better than nothing.

He heard the laughter again, and headed in that direction, racket held high above his head. "Michael?" he tried, but didn't want to be too loud. What if Michael had come across some psycho killers, like he said? Were there inbred hillbillies this far north? Of course Michael would befriend them, and then they'd make Dan their bitch. These people probably fucked pigs, so they'd love to have a soft, pasty person to get all up in. Maybe he wasn't in a place to judge, since Michael had probably done it with pigs, too, and Dan was able to ignore that. And Michael definitely liked Dan's pasty ass.

But then again, Michael didn't skin him alive after they had sex. Not yet, anyway.

The laughter grew louder, and it was soon accompanied by the sound of running water. A few steps further and came upon a spring with three black bears catching fish, and Michael standing right in the middle of it all.

Michael's eyes lit up when he saw Dan. He waved. "Check it out! ANTS!"

"Michael, those are bears."

"I know those are bears, Daniel. I'm not an idiot." He bent over and reached into the water. He wriggled his hands around for a few seconds and then stood up straight, with a fish in his hands. "Ants!"

"No, that's... never mind." Dan looked over and C-note was standing off to the side, his arms crossed, watching everything. "What the hell's going on?"

C-Note turned to him and then blinked. "What are you doing with my tennis racket?"

"Just in case there were... for protection? Why do you have a tennis racket in the back of the car?"

"Because I play tennis." He snatched the racket from Dan. "I have a life, you know. That _is_ my car. And is it too early to give Michael another tranquilizer?"

"Wouldn't you rather use the bear tranquilizers on, say, the bears?" Dan asked. He shoved his hands in his pockets.

"The bears aren't hurting anyone. Michael's a different story. I had to stop him from attacking the bears, which could likely kill us all. He might still die, because that water's really cold, but we could only be so lucky." C-Note sighed. "That'd solve all our problems."

Dan frowned. "Is he at least catching a lot of fish?"

"If he does, he just lets them go. I don't know why he has sympathy for the fish, because I've seen him kill a lot of cats. But catching fish might involve him being useful."

"You really hate us, don't you?"

C-Note looked ahead at where Michael was splashing around in the water. "Yes, I do. But my programming restricts me from doing anything harmful to either one of you. I think the Chief suspected this might happen."

Instead of responding to that, Dan said, "I just can't believe Michael was up before me. He sleeps like sixteen hours a day. He's like a cat. A really big cat. He even brings me his dead animals, expecting to be praised. I was always a dog person."

"I can't believe you didn't hear him," C-Note said. "He's not exactly quiet. He was talking loudly and banging stuff around. He woke me up, and I wasn't even on."

"I think I've learned to tune most of that out." Dan turned his gaze over to Michael, who had stepped out of the spring in his bare feet and was walking toward one of the bears. "Michael, don't. Get away from the bears."

"Aw, they're not hurting anyone," Michael replied. "I just want a bear claw."

"That's -- that's not what that is," Dan said. "Bear claws don't come from real bears. They're pastries." He looked helplessly at C-Note. "Can't you do something about this?"

C-Note shrugged with one shoulder. "When I come back to get you, I'll bring bear claws."

"Thanks a lot."

"What do you want me to do?"

Dan sighed as he watched Michael. He didn't seem to be causing any harm for once, and the bears seemed calm. Maybe it wasn't Michael for once. Maybe it was everything else. It was ridiculous that they were even here. "Just... fix this. All of this."

C-Note smiled. "Then you're in luck. That's exactly what I'm here for."

"Michael," Dan called, "since when do you even like bears?"

Michael didn't answer right away, hidden halfway behind one of the giant bears. He stood up straight, holding a large bear cub in his arms. "When they got this cute! Look at this little guy!"

Dan's eyes widened. He looked between Michael and the surrounding bears, waiting for the mother bear to attack. "Michael," he said, stepping forward, hands up, as though the bears would recognize the sign of surrender, "put the bear down."

"But he's cute, right?" Michael's jaw dropped. "Gasp! Dan! We should adopt him! We could have a baby!"

"Fuck, no!" Dan exclaimed, possibly more distracted by the prospect of being parents, even to a bear, than the fact that Michael was holding a _fucking bear_ , two feet away from its mother. Dan didn't know a lot about bears, but he knew the phrase "mama bear" came from somewhere.

Michael walked back through the spring, the bear in his arms pawing gently at his face, somehow not clawing him up. It growled, but not threateningly. Dan had to admit the cub was pretty cute.

"This is the most pointless thing ever," Dan muttered. Was he dead? Was this Hell? Did he die yesterday? It seemed possible that Hell could be one pointless thing after another, with no resolution. Though there would probably be less sex and cuddling and more having his dick ripped off, so there might still be a chance to turn this all around. "Why is this happening?"

"Because this bear is a single mother and needs our help," Michael replied seriously. "Look at this little guy. Isn't he the cutest? And then when he grows up, he'll make a great rug in our apartment."

Dan was just about to reach out the stroke the cub's fur, but he stopped. "No. No, Michael, no. Jesus. Put the bear back where you found him. We can't keep a bear, and we're not going to back to the apartment. And you're just going to skin it anyway."

"No!" Michael exclaimed, throwing throwing the bear at Dan. Dan caught it, but dropped it almost immediately. It was _heavy_. The cub scampered back to its mother whose growl was much more menacing.

"What the--"

"You don't tell me what to do! I tell me what to do!" Michael slammed his fist against his own chest. "You always tell me what to do. You're always trying to change me and make me boring like you. Don't put your dick there, put that wallet back, grape soda doesn't go in your ass, stop fucking hobos. Do you know _know_ how many hobos I've fucked?"

"A lot?" Dan guessed.

"Damn right a lot! You can't tell me what to do, you're not my dad!" Michael, in his rage, shoved the nearest tree, trying to push it over. However, it was a very old tree, with a thick trunk and roots that spread nearly to the spring. It didn't budge.

"What's he's doing?" C-Note asked in a low voice.

"I don't know," Dan replied. He took a step closer to Michael. "Hey, I didn't mean to... you always do what you want to do, Michael. You never listen to me."

Michael stopped shoving the tree, and he dusted the bits of bark off his hands. "How do you think I remembered all those thing you said?"

Dan opened his mouth, but he didn't have a response, so he just stood there, gaping slightly.

Michael's anger seemed to be cut with tears, his hands shaking, like a child who didn't know how to cope with his feelings, whose body was too small for all the emotion welling up inside of him. That's what Michael was in so many ways. Six-foot-four and still too small to know how to deal with all of his feelings and power until he ultimately exploded.

"Michael," Dan said quietly, but Michael took a defiant step backwards before spinning around and running in the direction of the campsite.

C-Note stepped up next to Dan. "What did he mean about the grape soda?"

"I..." Dan looked at him, but he didn't actually feel like C-Note deserved an explanation. "Never mind."

They were still looking at each other when they heard the car start. C-Note dropped his hands to his pockets, apparently feeling for keys, but the expression on his face was panic. "Shit."

They ran after Michael, and all Dan could wonder was, _where was he going to go without any roads?_

The campsite was deserted. C-Note followed the tire tracks and Dan followed C-Note, but even as an experienced runner, he couldn't keep up with the robot's speed.

He heard a crash and he could smell the smoke before he saw anything. There wasn't anything to see except trees. Dan was fighting for breath when he finally reached Michael and C-Note. They were standing on the edge of a cliff -- a fucking cliff -- and looking over the side.

"What... the fuck?" Dan asked. He looked over and there was the source of the smoke, the car. He knew they were in the mountains, but how were there cliffs? "Michael, what did you do?"

"Ants," Michael replied so calmly it was almost spooky. "It was full of ants."

"No," C-Note said, his voice shaking, "it was full of your food and what recharged my battery. I'm going to die now."

Michael brought his hand up to his mouth. "Oops."

"Die?" Dan repeated. He hadn't been paying a lot of attention, thinking about how his bag with the tranqs and his wallet in it had been sitting in the backseat. He looked around Michael at C-Note. "What do you mean, die?"

"I mean that my power cells will run out in about sixteen hours. I told you, I need to get them replaced." C-Note stared down off the edge of the cliff. "If I could kill you right now, Michael, I would."

Michael's jaw dropped as his hands fell to his sides. "No!"

"That fucking car was the only thing keeping me alive! Without the car, I won't be able to get to the mansion. I won't be going anywhere." He turned away from the cliff with disgust. "We're going to have to go to plan B."

They walked back to the campsite, and Dan held onto Michael's hand. Partly, to keep him from C-Note, because while C-Note might not be able to hurt them, it seemed wise, and also because... _had_ Michael been holding back lately? Had he been trying?

"Hey," Dan said when they were several paces behind C-Note. "What you said earlier--"

"Eh," Michael said with a wave of his hand. "I'll say anything once."

"You drove a car off a cliff."

"Yeah, what was up with that?"

Dan squeezed Michael's hand. "I'm sorry." He couldn't believe that Michael just stranded them in the woods and _he_ was the one apologizing.

All that was left at the campsite was the tent, the two backpacks, and a lantern. C-Note sat on the ground with a USB drive in his hand.

"What are you doing?" Dan asked. "What's plan B?"

C-Note looked up at him with those bright blue eyes, and Dan actually felt his breath catch in his throat. Jesus, he was beautiful. "You guys are going to have to go to Canada. You'll have to go to the mansion. Just head north."

"But there's the border. There's people who want to kill us."

"I can still help you," C-Note said. He opened up a latch on his arm and plugged the flash drive into it. "You have to start moving now. Pack up the camp and get moving. I'm going to upload my consciousness onto this drive. _Do not_ lose it. Everything that I am is going to be on this drive. Everything I know, everything I do."

"Except fuck," Michael said.

C-Note glared. "That's right." He ran a finger down the length of his arm, perhaps savoring his body for the last time. "I still have sixteen hours, but you guys need to get moving."

Dan stepped forward. "C-Note--"

"Shut up," C-Note said. "Don't complain. Head north."

"We don't know where we're going."

Those blue eyes darted to Michael, and then back to Dan. "You will."

"You're telling me he has a map in his head?" Dan asked dryly. "Is this like The Mummy or something?"

"Or something." C-Note shook his head. "Don't worry about it. Just head north. You'll know where you're going. When the time comes, there'll be a place to put this. Don't lose me." His eyes fluttered shut, and after a few seconds, his body relaxed, and slumped forward.

"He's dead," Michael said.

Dan knelt next to C-Note and carefully removed the flash drive. "Yeah, I guess he is." The drive was attached to a keychain, and Dan tucked it into his pocket. He looked at C-Note's peaceful face. "It feels wrong to just leave him here."

"We're taking C-USB with us, right?" Michael asked. He kicked the tent and half of it folded in on itself. "Remember that time we died? And you pooped yourself. It was hilarious."

"We didn't--" Dan sighed. "Let's just get this stuff packed up and get moving." He didn't know if that was the right thing to do, but doing what C-Note told them to seemed like the only thing _to_ do.

Michael crouched down next to C-Note's body and studied him carefully. Then he lifted C-Note's shirt, revealing perfectly sculpted abs. Michael nodded to C-Note's slightly open mouth. "You don't think he'd mind, do you?"

Dan smiled. "If I said yes, would that stop you?"

"Nope."

"Then go for it."

So, while Dan packed up the tent and figured out how to attach it to the bottom of his backpack, Michael fucked the hollow shell of C-Note's beautiful face.

Things seemed almost normal.


	4. A Horse in the Woods is Worth Exactly One Horse

"Are you sure we're going in the right direction?" Dan asked, looking up into bits of overcast sky he could see through the trees. They were obviously still in the woods, but were they still in the park? C-Note had said they were in the outskirts of the park and they had been walking all day. They only stopped for a lunch of Fruit Roll-Ups and roasted almonds from a foil packet that Michael had found in their backpacks. If nothing else, C-Note had left them as prepared as he could for being on their own, even without most of their food supplies.

Except for a compass.

"Moss grows on the north side of the trees," Michael replied, sounding very confident. Almost like he knew what he was talking about. However, history told Dan that Michael sounding like he knew what he was saying and him _actually_ knowing what he was saying were two completely different things. "I was a boy scout," he added, as though he could feel Dan's skepticism.

Dan stopped in his tracks, trying to imagine Michael has a boy scout. It was a little terrifying. though he liked the idea of the uniform. He'd heard that thing about moss before, and it sounded right, but when he actually looked at the trunks of the trees, he thought there might be something wrong. "Michael, look at the trees. They all have moss on them. All around them. Every side."

Michael nodded. "That's because trees are tricky. They're always trying to get you to go in the wrong direction. And don't even think about picking apples from them, or they'll throw them right back at you."

"None of these are apples trees. We can't even reach the branches if they were. And that was _The Wizard of Oz_."

"Yeah, the documentary about the flying monkeys."

"I don't think you know what a documentary is."

"It's a movie."

"About real things."

"Yeah, and that's you don't fuck with flying monkeys."

Dan pushed up glasses with his thumb and forefinger so he could pinch the bridge of his nose. Most days he could at least cope with the words coming out of Michael's mouth, but lost in the woods... it was a whole different story. It was like his patience for Michael's antics was thinning and it was almost gone. In fact, it might have been gone a mile ago.

He should have just been glad that Michael seemed engaged enough in just walking through the woods and wasn't dragging his feet. He should take advantage of this while he could, because at any second, Dan could be literally pulling Michael behind him. He just would have felt better if he had any idea that they were heading in the right direction.

They hadn't seen another person since they left the city. Thankfully, they hadn't seen Kelly, either, but it would have been nice to ask someone for directions. For all they knew, they were wandering aimlessly through the woods and would die once they ran out of snacks, or came across more fucking bears.

Dan missed his GPS, even though he hadn't had one in years.

Michael had presumably grown bored with Dan's silence, so he ran ahead, possibly north, and disappeared into it darkness between the trees. Dan sighed, readjusted his backpack on his shoulders, and followed after Michael.

"Dan!" Michael shouted. "Dan, come here, come look!"

Michael didn't sound like he was in trouble, or that there was anything terrible happening, but that didn't mean someone couldn't still be holding a gun to his head. Michael was, after all, convinced that they were dead. Unlike Dan, he didn't panic in the face of real death. Possibly because it seemed Michael was unable to die, but he might have just thought it was all a video game.

Dan ran as fast as he could, jumping over rocks and a fallen tree branch until he reached a clearing where Michael was standing in a metal paddock, next to a gorgeous chestnut quarter horse.

"Where did you -- how did you?" Dan looked around. There was a shed, but it wasn't anything close to the size of a barn. There was absolutely nothing else around. No houses, no farm. Just a horse in an abandoned little paddock in the woods. They hadn't seen anyone since they left the city. How long had this horse been here alone? It didn't look malnourished or sickly. In fact, it was beautiful and perfect in every way. Dan reached up and rubbed his hand over the horse's nose. It snuffled against his hand. "Michael, did you make a horse?"

Michael shrugged. "Maybe. You never can tell."

For a second, Dan thought that maybe, if Michael was going to use his abilities to make things appear, he could have made a car, or one of those four-wheelers, since they were in the woods. On the other hand, Michael would have ended up driving either of those things since Dan couldn't drive a car, and he wasn't sure if he manage a four-wheeler. But if there was anything Dan knew about, it was horses. Of course, he hadn't ridden a horse since he was fourteen, and that was under the very strict supervision from an instructor at the one lesson he took.

"Well, he's -- she's beautiful," he said. Dan climbed over the fence and managed not to fall over, though he fumbled a bit as he shifted his weight, thanks to the heavy backpack, but he landed on the ground with his pride intact.

"He," Michael said. "He's a he. I looked."

"Of course you looked." It was probably the first thing Michael had done.

"Who wouldn't look? He's impressive. You should look and see what you're missing."

Dan ignored Michael's fascination with dicks, even horse dicks, for a moment and stroked the horse's smooth coat with a smile. "He's so beautiful."

"I guess, but he keep flipping me off."

"No, he's--" Dan paused and watched the way the horse stomped his front leg in Michael's direction. "Okay, maybe he is. A little bit. Should we, do you think, take him? I've always wanted a horse, but does he belong to someone? I can't _steal_ a horse."

"I thought we agreed that I made the horse," Michael said.

"We didn't agree on anything," Dan replied, but he honestly couldn't say it wasn't a possibility. He looked around, as though a farmer or a breeder was going to come out of nowhere and tell them to get out of his wooded yard, but no one appeared. Of course no one appeared. There hadn't been anyone since they left the city, and Dan was pretty tired of walking, too. "I think it'd be worse to leave him here alone."

"So we can keep him?" Michael asked, wide-eyed, grabbing a handful of mane.

"Go into the shed and see if there's a saddle," Dan said generously, but really it was a very selfish thing. It was only fair that he got to be selfish sometimes, too. And this one was actually useful. They could ride the horse for a while and get a break from walking. But mostly, Dan wanted to ride the horse. He stroked the smooth, chestnut coat along the horse's neck while Michael ran to the shed.

"You're a good boy, aren't you?" Dan murmured and the horse snuffed in agreement.

"Dan!" Michael hollered from the shed. "Come check out all this cool stuff!"

Reluctantly, Dan stepped away from the horse and walked toward the shed, just a light rain started to fall. He pushed open the door and stepped inside. Michael wasn't anywhere to be seen. "Where are you?" he asked. It was one room. There really wasn't anywhere for Michael to hide.

"HEY!" Michael shouted from the rafters and jumped onto Dan from above. They tumbled into a pile of hay. Oh, maybe that was what he said.

There was suddenly hay in all of Dan's clothes, in the sleeves of his shirt and down the back of his pants. "What the hell?" he asked, trying to get upright, but it was hard with Michael wrapping his arms around Dan's body, and holding him down.

"This is a great room," Michael said cheerfully. His sunglasses had fallen from the top of his head and around his neck on the nylon rope. He picked up a handful of hay and threw it at Dan's face. "I like this house."

"This isn't a house," Dan replied, pulling bits of hay out from behind his glasses. He paused and listened to the rain, now pounding harder against the metal roof. "But we should probably stay here until it clears up out there."

A slow grin spread across Michael's face and his hand wandered down the front of Dan's pants. He lowered the zipper and slipped his hand inside. "How do you feel about salmon?"

"Salmon?" Dan repeated. His dick was already perking up, just at the threat of contact. "Are we back on the bear thing?"

Michael squeezed Dan's cock through his underwear. "I'm past the bears, Daniel. Do you know how to do the sushi squish?"

Dan's brow furrowed. "Is that a sexual position? That sounds... awful. What's the squish part?"

"One of us has to be completely soft for the whole thing," Michael replied. His huge hand wrapped around Dan's throat, easily covering it, before stroking his long fingers over Dan's Adam's apple. Chills ran up Dan's spine. "I vote for you. We also need a live salmon."

"Then why are you..." Dan motioned to his crotch. "With the hand? And the other hand?"

Michael didn't stop what he was doing to Dan's cock with his other hand as he grinned. "Because I like your dick. Your little, tiny, hardly there penis. You barely get hard as it is, what with your cute, little baby-sized micro-dick. It's so small that--"

"Yes, yes, Michael, we all get it, and it's not even that small. It's normal-sized. All of me is normal-sized."

"Keep telling yourself that, buddy."

Dan rolled his eyes and then he groaned. There was no way, even if they had a salmon, that they'd be able to do the sushi squish now. Not that he even wanted to, and definitely not with the way the fabric from his white cotton-blend briefs was rubbing against his dick, and when Michael would move his thumb over the head. He leaned back on the hay and let Michael do whatever he wanted down there with his wandering hands and puppy dog eyes practically oozing with lust. With the woods and the rain, it was actually romantic. In a weird, surreal, Michael-y sort of way.

"Is the horse okay?"

Dan blinked a few times. "What? Oh, yeah, he's fine." He paused and wondered if Michael meant if the horse was okay to join them. Michael did have a thing for horse dicks. All dicks. Any dicks. "He's fine out there. Jesus, Michael, if you're going to start, don't stop."

"You're such a bossy bottom," Michael said, shaking his head in disbelief, his smile fond.

"No, I'm not," Dan protested, and then he paused. He didn't exactly know what that meant, but he was certain that he wasn't one.

Michael sweet smile turned to a smirk as he opened up Dan's pants the rest of the way with one hand, and pulled Dan's dick out of his underwear with the other. He looked up at Dan and opened his mouth wide, baring all of his teeth, and stuck out his tongue to slowly lick his lips.

"That's unnerving," Dan muttered, possibly with the hope that Michael would hear him and stop doing that, but he didn't. Or perhaps he just chose not to stop.

Lowering his head, Michael wrapped his mouth around Dan's cock, nearly swallowing it whole. Dan squirmed, his pants shifting further and further down his thighs, and he shoved his hands into Michael's hair.

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu--"

Michael lifted his head. "You know, this really would be better with a salmon."

Dan, with his hands still in Michael's hair, forced his head down. "Don't. Stop."

"Bossy," Michael muttered, but, for once, he actually did as Dan said, and ran his tongue around the crown of Dan's dick. He wrapped his hand, that gorgeous, giant fucking hand, around the shaft and gave it a hearty pull.

Dan dug his heels into the ground as he came all over Michael's mouth and chin. He relaxed and swallowed loudly. He stared up at the ceiling, and he could see a leak, but it wasn't dripping on his face. Funny. Usually, it would be right on his forehead. "Were we supposed to be doing something?"

Michael flopped down next to him in the hay. He dropped his sunglasses down over his eyes, which was ridiculous because it was pretty dark in the shed. "If you don't know, we're fucked."

Words Dan never imagined he'd think crossed his mind: Michael was right. "North," he said breathlessly. He licked his lips. "We're going north. The moss and stuff."

"You're so weird after you come," Michael said. He traced designs on Dan's cheek with the tip of his finger.

That woke Dan up a little from his haze. If _Michael_ said he was weird, something wasn't quite right. Then again, Michael's version of "weird" could be anything.

Dan sat up on his elbows. "You want me to, uh..." He motioned down at Michael's pants. He could see Michael's erection through the thin layer of fabric of his plaid pants. Not surprising that Michael wasn't wearing underwear. He did wear it sometimes, boxers around the apartment, but never actually under his clothes. Was it still underwear if he didn't wear it under anything?

"Nah," Michael answered. "We're going to ride the horse, right?"

"What does that have to do with sex?"

"Ohhhh, you were talking about _sex_. Yeah, oh yeah, let's have sex."

Dan hesitated, blinking, and he considered for a second what Michael could have thought he meant, but the truth was, he didn't really care. He grabbed Michael around the arm and pulled at him until Michael rolled over, kicking his legs as though he were in water and not in a hay pile, until he climbed up on top of Dan.

Michael placed a hand on each of Dan's cheeks and kissed him tongue first. He hadn't wiped off his sticky chin, and Dan could taste his own come in Michael's mouth. Their glasses scraped together and Dan reached up to pull Michael's sunglasses off. He wasn't the one who needed his glasses to see.

Dan wrapped his arms around Michael's body and shoved his hands down the back of his pants, slowly working them down as Michael chewed on Dan's lower lip.

As Dan's pants worked slowly down his legs, now around his knees, hay was working its way in his ass. It was uncomfortable, yes, but not uncomfortable enough to make Michael stop what he was doing.

Michael licked Dan's neck. "You taste milky," he murmured in a sexy little rumble. "Baby formula." He bit Dan's earlobe. "And waxy build-up," he said, his mouth still wrapped around Dan's ear. "Fu-uuck. Tastes good."

"It's so weird that this does it for me," Dan mumbled, pulling up the back of Michael's shirt. He jumped when he felt something tickle against his balls. "What the _fuck_ was that? Was that your dick or a snake?"

"Is there a difference?" Michael asked in his most sultry voice.

"In a shed in the middle of the woods, yes. A snake is a snake. And your dick is... your dick."

Michael grinned lopsidedly. "You better believe it is." He shoved his tongue back into Dan's mouth and moaned loudly as Dan squeezed his thighs around what he figured, at that point, had to be Michael's cock.

"Oh, you filthy minx," Michael said, his tongue still in Dan's mouth. He growled and began to furiously hump.

Dan closed his eyes. The friction and the heat between his legs, even if it wasn't his dick or his pleasure, it still felt good, with Michael's cock curved along Dan's thigh, moving against him at a fevered pace.

"You like that, don't you, Moistbottoms?" Michael asked, tracing Dan's throat with his long fingers.

Dan's eyes opened. "That's not my nickname. We decided a long time ago that wasn't my nickname," he said, and then Michael came all over Dan's underwear. Perhaps making him a bit moist around the bottom. "It's not," he insisted.

Michael fell down on top of Dan and buried his face in Dan's chest. A few seconds later, he let out a loud snore.

"You have got to be me kidding me," Dan said. The hay was now quite uncomfortably in his ass, but it was mostly just itchy. With Michael on him, he could barely move, let alone turn over onto his side to scratch his butt.

It was still raining outside, but even with the very nice break for sex, they had to keep moving. All this was doing was giving Dan too long to think about what they were doing. C-Note had wanted to keep them away from the Chief's mansion, but they still had to get him there. However they were supposed to use him, now that he was just a flash drive, he didn't know.

"Michael," Dan said, nudging Michael's leg with his knee. "Come on, get up. We have to go."

Michael groaned, but rolled off of Dan. "Can we get some coffee?"

"If we come across a liquor store, sure." Dan lifted his hips so he could get the hay out of his underwear and pull up his pants. "I could use a drink right about now. Did you ever find a saddle? Did you even look?"

"Yeah, there's all sorts of stuff," Michael said, motioning to the other side of the shed. He sat up on his knees, his dick still hanging out. "Can't we take a nap?"

"It's only three in the afternoon. We can sleep when it's dark out." Dan stood up, dusted off the back of his pants, and stepped around Michael to inspect the gear. Sure enough, there was a saddle, a blanket, a bridle and a halter. Everything they would need to steal a horse.

"Pull up your pants, Mike," Dan said, loading up his arms with tack. "We're going for a ride."

The rain was steady, but wasn't cold, and the horse stood there, snuffling and occasionally stomping his hoof as Dan saddled him up. Sure, it had been nearly twenty years since Dan had last saddled a horse, but he never stopped reading about it. Practical knowledge was half the battle.

"You're a good boy," Dan said, stroking the wet coat of the horse. He needed a name, but then again, he probably shouldn't a name a horse that he wasn't going to be able to keep. It would be too hard.

Saddling him was easy enough, as was strapping both of their backpacks to the horse's rump, but it was everything Dan could do to get him to take the bit. Maybe it was a little presumptuous to assume that the horse could actually be ridden.

"Here," Michael said, pushing Dan out of the way. He fiddled with the bit in the horse's mouth for a moment, and then the horse took it.

"How'd you do that?" Dan asked, amazed.

Michael shrugged. "Horses get me."

"I didn't know that you'd ever actually been around horses before."

"I haven't."

"Then how--" Dan held up his hands. "Never mind. I'm driving. This I can do." He hoisted himself up onto the saddle and then held his hand out to Michael, like the hero on the cover of a romance novel.

Michael's eyes lit up as he took Dan's hand. "Good _sir_ ," he said as Dan pulled him up onto the horse. He wrapped his arms around Dan's middle and rested his head on Dan's shoulder. "Let's go."

Dan smiled and shifted on the saddle. Something wasn't right. He twisted to one side and pulled C-USB out of his pocket. What was he supposed to do with it? He glanced looked to the side and saw Michael's face in his peripheral vision. That was probably a bad idea. "Here," he said, holding the drive out. "Put this in your pocket."

"C-USB?" Michael asked, his eyes widening with reverent awe.

"Just keep him in your pocket," Dan replied. "Can you do that?"

Michael nodded, carefully tucking the drive in his front pants pocket. "I won't let him out of my pants."

Dan laughed and then his smile faded as he looked around. "We probably should have opened up the paddock first."

After the false start they were finally on their way. It didn't take long for Michael to fall asleep, snoring loudly, but Dan didn't mind. He was in a beautiful forest, riding a beautiful horse, and for a moment, everything was perfect.

He hoped he was still moving north. All the moss looked exactly the same to him, and he didn't even know if that was right. It came out of Michael's mouth, so there was only a fifty percent chance that it was right. More like a thirty percent chance. It didn't have to do with the law. Probably twenty percent.

With the weight of two grown men and two fairly heavy backpacks, the horse moved slowly. They probably weren't going any faster than they would on foot, but at least Michael was resting, and Dan's feet had been ready for the break.

It got dark in the woods quickly beneath the cover of the trees. Every shadow from every branch seemed to stretch across the path. Lightning flashed and the shadows disappeared for a second, and the rain began to fall harder. Dan shivered and elbowed Michael in the gut.

"Michael. Michael, wake up."

"Huh?" Michael sat up straight. "Are we there yet?"

"No, we're not even close. We're still in the woods, but we need to stop. This is a good enough place as any to set up camp." Dan slid off the horse. His thighs ached, but it was okay. "We need to set up the tent."

"You don't know how to set up the tent," Michael replied. He dismounted messily and fell to the ground. He clutched his left elbow in his hand and began to cry. Or, more accurately, he made a loud fuss while raindrops splattered against his cheeks.

Dan crouched in front of him and cupped Michael's face in his hands. "Hey, hey, we can't do this now. It's raining even worse now, and I don't think it's going to get any better. We need to figure out the tent and get dry, okay?"

Michael wiped his nose with the back of his hand and nodded. "Why can't we sleep under the horse? It's not raining there."

There was actually logic there, but... "Horses pee randomly," Dan said. "We'd be better off in the rain."

"But the pee would be warm."

"That's -- can we not talk about this?" Dan stood up and got the backpacks off the horse. He dropped them on the ground next to Michael. "Get out the tent and at least spread it out. We'll do the best we can. I'm going to go to the bathroom."

"You don't need to hide anything from me, Dan. I've watched you pee," Michael said with a wide smile. He slid his sunglasses back on his face, even though it was dark.

Dan blinked at him. "That's not good, but, uh, I don't have to pee."

"Oh, that's okay. I've watched you do that, too."

Dan held his hands up and slowly closed his fingers into fists. He counted to five, but he didn't think his blood pressure was actually lowering. "I'm going to go find a private place to poop. Can you stay here?"

"I can stay," Michael said, but he might have just been repeating Dan's words back to him. That happened from time to time.

After fishing the toilet paper out of his backpack, Dan went further into the woods. They'd only been gone for two days, but it felt like a lifetime, and he'd only had a few minutes by himself. He liked Michael a lot, obviously, but he needed his space sometimes. It was a defense mechanism for his sanity. Sure, it was just for as long as it would take him to shit in the woods, but the break was nice.

He pulled down his pants and squatted behind (or was it in front of?) a tree. He closed his eyes and tilted his face toward the sky. The rain was cold on his face, splattering fat drops on his glasses. The air freezing against his bare ass, but the near silence was wonderful.

He leaned against the tree, relaxing for just a moment when he heard the horse whinny quite loudly, followed by a scream. Dan sat up straight. "Michael? Are you okay?" He fumbled with the toilet paper. He wasn't going to go back to camp without wiping, no matter how big the emergency. "Michael, I swear to god, if you have your dick in that horse--"

Dan cut himself off when he saw... were those headlights? He stood and yanked his pants up. How did the Order find them? They were in the middle of motherfucking nowhere, and they'd been caught with their pants down.

"Michael, run!" Dan shouted as he ran back to the campsite, except that they had no campsite. It was just a place they stopped and in the darkness there was no way of knowing if he was even going the right way. Panic built up in his chest. Between that and the running, it was becoming hard to breathe.

The headlights blinded him as he stepped in front of the car -- was it a van? How did they get a van this far into the woods? Where did the horse go? Where was Michael? Was he nearby, or did Dan just lead the van in the opposite direction? He couldn't tell.

Dan turned away from the lights, squinting into the darkness, and he could have sworn he heard Michael screaming his name as something whacked him hard on the back of the head.

The toilet paper fell from his hand and landed in the mud.


	5. The Temptation of Dr. Baby

Dan opened his eyes and everything was still dark. He'd opened his eyes, right? He blinked a few times and determined that he must be in a room with no lights. He sniffed loudly and sneezed. There was definitely mold and dust, and he could smell his own sweat and -- was that curly fries? He raised his head, and discovered instantly how much of a mistake that was, his stomach lurching. He swallowed hard to keep from vomiting all over himself.

A head injury, he thought, trying to ignore the pounding behind his eyes. Definitely a head injury.

He remembered, vaguely, being hit in the head and Michael crying his name. Michael was still out there, right? It had been established that Michael needed him to have any hope in staying unnoticed. Alone in the world, Michael was a neon light flashing "HERE I AM" to the Order.

Dan tried to lift his hands to cover his face, but they were bound behind his back, tied to the chair he was sitting on with thick, rough rope. His ass was asleep against the hard seat and he shivered, suddenly freezing, all the way down to his toes. Was he naked? Kidnapped and stripped naked. This could not possibly be worse. Nothing, not even death, could be worse than this.

As Dan's eyes adjusted to the darkness, he looked down and could see the whiteness from his undershirt, and what appeared to be the outline of his plaid boxers. His shoulders sagged with relief. He might be tied to a chair, barefoot and in his underwear, but at least his dick wasn't hanging out.

He had to get out of here, wherever that was. He had to find Michael. But the first thing he had to do was get out of the chair and then out of the building. He had to formulate a plan. What would Indiana Jones do? No, what would _Spider-Man_ do?

Of course, thinking about that probably wasn't going to be incredibly helpful. Spider-Man had superpowers, and Indiana Jones kept a lighter in his pocket because it was the 1940's and everyone kept lighters on them so they could fight Nazis. Dan didn't even have his pants.

His whole body shook, maybe more from the cold than from fear, but for all the times he thought he was going to die over the last five years (and some of those were recently, but at least when when Michael set fire to things or jumped on Dan while wielding the electric razor, it was a little charming and there was usually apology sex afterwards), this one seemed the most likely to _actually_ kill him.

He tried to pull at the ropes around his wrists, but they were tight and all he got was rope burn. Great, now his head, his ass, and his wrists were all coursing with pain. Was this supposed to be psychological torture? Didn't they know that Dan could withstand anything after living with Michael for the last two years?

Dan dropped his head back. "If you're going to kill me, just fucking kill me!" he shouted into the darkness. That made him sound like a badass, and at this point, he actually felt that way. God, he was so fucking _tired_.

A light came on from a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. It wasn't very bright, but it was enough to cause Dan to squint, so he could barely make out the figure coming toward him. Everything was blurry and painful.

"I could kill you, but then you'd be dead," said Kelly as she stepped into the light. She shoved her hands the pockets of her jeans. "That doesn't do me a lot of good. You can't tell me anything if you're dead."

Dan blinked a few times, his vision adjusting to the light. He knew Kelly was the one after them, but except for one fight with a robot and a few times he'd seen her in a moving car, he hadn't actually _looked_ at her. But now that she was right in front of him, she looked amazing, even in the basement of what he was pretty sure was an Arby's. Maybe it was a side effect of the head injury, but her skin glowed under the crappy light and her smile sparkled. "Whoa, hey, Kelly. Killing people is agreeing with you. You look fantastic."

"Thank you, Dan, that's so nice of you to say. After that... encounter we had a few years ago, I needed something new. I had to push the envelope a little further and professional assassin really fit the bill. I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it before."

"And now you're going to kill me."

Kelly's smile subsided, but it didn't disappear completely. She gazed down at him, amused. "Daniel," she said softly, running her hand over the top of his head. He shivered, and that was definitely not from the cold. "I don't want to kill you. I will if I have to, but you're no good to me dead." She leaned over and Dan could look right down her shirt. He looked away nervously, and then back at the curve of her breasts -- then away. Her lips brushed against his ear and she whispered, "Tell me where Michael is."

He could feel her hot breath on the back of his neck, and it was all he could do not to moan out loud. Maybe he did. He wasn't sure. Slowly, her words made their way to his brain. He jerked his head away from her. "What?"

"Tell me where Michael is," she repeated, this time louder, sterner, but it was in no way less sexy. She stood back, resting her hands on her hips. "That's all you have to do. Tell me where he is, and I will let you go."

"What?" Dan repeated. He had been mentally preparing himself for a gun between the eyes, to have his life threatened, but being told that he might not have to die after all wasn't what he was expecting.

Kelly crouched in front of him, placing her hands on his bare knees. "Listen to me, Daniel, because this is painfully simple: the only reason anyone wanted you dead was because you're partners with Michael. First you were work partners and now you're gay partners -- does he still make farting sounds when your dicks touch?"

"No, he's past that -- well, maybe -- uh, sometimes. Sometimes."

"Daniel, what I'm saying to you is that you can have your life back," Kelly said, squeezing his knee and Dan was not going to try to deny that this was kind of turning him on, no matter how embarrassing that might be. They both knew it was turning him on. It was hard to deny anything involving his penis when he was only wearing his underwear.

"Focus," Kelly continued, and Dan hadn't realized that he was back to staring down her shirt. He snapped back up to her face. "Did you even hear what I said?"

"Not a word," Dan replied easily. "I was..." He swallowed. There was no point in lying. "I was looking at your boobs. They're really distracting. You should maybe try turtlenecks when you do this."

"You suck at being gay, you know that, right?"

"No, see, that's not true at all," he said, his voice rising to far too excitable levels. "Gay guys love boobs. They're always grabbing boobs. Michael does it all the time, and he's not even gay. I'm not even -- but he just fucks anything. And the women love it when he grabs their boobs. If I tried to do that, I would have a permanent slap mark across my face. In fact, I'm surprised you haven't slapped me just for talking about it."

Kelly reached behind her back and revealed her large gun. "Because instead of slapping you, I can kill you. Do you want to get back on topic now?"

Dan's eyes widened. "Yes, please. But this is still really hot, just letting you know."

"Duly noted," Kelly said. "Now, Dan, listen to me. I'm offering you an out. You can get rid of all this fucked up shit in your life. You can have your life back, your real life. You think I don't know what you've been doing the last two years? You work at Sbarro. You make calzones for a living."

"I'm the assistant manager," Dan snapped.

"You have a college degree."

His voice dropped to practically a grumble as he replied, "I try to forget about that."

"And that sucks, doesn't it?" Kelly rested her elbow on Dan's knee and propped her head against her hand. The gun went a little limp in her other hand. "Don't you want it back? You could work wherever you want, write for any website in the world, or whatever you wanted to do. You could write a novel. There'd be no one after you. No attempts on your life. Everything would go back to the way it was before you started working for Cracked.com."

In the back of his mind, Dan realized that Kelly had been trying to get this point across for the last few minutes, but this time, it finally stuck. "You're not going to kill me?" he asked, his voice squeaking.

"I will if I have to, but I don't want to. You're not important, Dan, and you never have been. All of this will be over if you just give me Michael. He's the only one who actually has to die."

A part of him wanted to be affronted that he wasn't important (though, somehow, he may have always known this), and the other part of him _was_ affronted that she thought he'd just hand Michael over that easily. "I'm not -- Michael's my, he's my -- my, my partner. Even if I knew where he was, which I don't, because he could be anywhere by now, I wouldn't tell you."

"He's done nothing but cause you trouble and pain for the last five years."

"I wouldn't give him up, not to you," Dan said, shaking his head. There was a sudden rush of queasiness, and the room to began to spin, Kelly's face going out of focus. He closed his eyes, trying to regain control of his own head, but his stomach just turned over again.

"Not even to save your own life?" she asked.

He opened his eyes and stared up at her. Her face was now sharp as ever, her serious eyes intense. "Not even then," he replied, not letting his voice waver.

Kelly raised her eyebrows as a smile spread across her face. "You love him, don't you?"

"No, I don't," Dan replied, sounding like a guilty child denying that he threw paint all over the living room curtains. He paused as Kelly stared up at him expectantly, and finally he sighed, resigned. "People still love a puppy who pees in their shoes. And Michael has done that, by the way. He has _peed_ in my _shoes_. More than once. He has absolutely no self control. The toilet is just in the next room."

"Your life sounds absolutely miserable. You're giving me every reason for you to want to him to go away, you realize that, right?"

"Why do you keep posing everything as a question?" Dan asked, his brow furrowing. "You're making statements, but you keep adding a question to the end of it. If you know the answer, stop asking me."

Kelly brought the gun up, pressing the barrel to Dan's temple. "Here's a statement: tell me where Michael is or I will kill you."

"I don't know where he is! You knocked me out and brought me here! He could be _anywhere_! He doesn't have a home base since we left the city. He wanders like you would not believe and if he doesn't have a place to go back to, he will just keep wandering. If he's still in those woods, he'll be there forever."

"Or he'll come and find you," Kelly said, stepping away from him, and in that instant, Dan was just relieved to not have a gun smashed against his face that it took him a moment to register what she said.

"What?"

She tucked the gun into the back of her jeans and smiled. "He has a home base, Daniel. He has you. He will come and find you no matter where you are, and when he does, it's over. I'll kill him."

Dan stared, but he wasn't really looking at her. He'd never thought about it that way. In fact, he always sort assumed that Michael would eventually just leave and not come back because he found someone or something he'd rather stick his dick into (some days Dan hoped it would happen, but other times the idea hurt). But they'd been in hiding for two years, and Michael always came home. That was why Dan assumed it was a physical place, whether it was the Cracked offices, or their apartment, but could it actually be him? Kelly certainly seemed to think so, and that meant the Order thought so, too.

"So, you're just stalling," Dan said finally.

"I wasn't fucking with you. If you wanted to hand him over, I would have gone through with the deal. They might want you dead, but Michael's the priority. But you didn't take the deal, so you're going to have to die, too." She spoke so matter-of-factly that Dan nearly missed her words. That kept happening. Maybe it was a side effect of the head injury. Maybe that was why he thought he might throw up, and sure enough, he could feel the bile rising up in his throat.

He tried to swallow it, but this time there was nothing he could do to keep it down, and then, like a nightmare from high school, Dan projectile vomited all over Kelly fucking Wheeler.

"What the _fuck_?" Kelly shrieked, jumping backwards. The gun fell out of the back of her pants, and she looked at it, but didn't move to pick it up. It wasn't anywhere near Dan and the front of her shirt was covered in sick. Clearly, she had other things on her mind.

"I think I have a concussion," Dan replied as a way of explanation. He shivered, a cold sweat running down the sides of his face. How sick was he?

"You just puked on me."

"I should go to a hospital," he said miserably.

"The only thing worse than this was the sex we had with Michael," Kelly replied, carefully pulling off her shirt, revealing her purple bra.

Despite the fuzzy halo around everything and the smell of vomit in the room, at the sight of Kelly's underwear and bare midriff (those things seemed perfectly clear), Dan realized he was still pretty aroused. That had to be seriously fucked up in some way.

"Fuck this shit," Kelly muttered, kicking the soiled shirt over in the corner. Dan wondered if she had a back-up shirt or if she was going to walk through the Arby's in just her bra. That would be hot.

Dan blinked a few times, and through the haze, he could have sworn he saw another shadow along the wall, flickering as the bulb swayed on its chain. The shadow sort of looked like a giant spider. A giant man-spider brandishing a large knife. Jesus, now he was hallucinating. It was beginning to seem obvious that if Kelly didn't shoot him, he was still going to die from the massive blow to his head. There probably wasn't any point in fighting it. He should just accept his death and hope that Michael could survive, somehow.

He wouldn't even get an obituary this time. It'd be all, _John Doe found dead from head injury in Arby's basement, tied to a chair, wearing only his underwear with his penis at half mast._ How long did erections last after death? His story might even make it onto TV news programs, debating the safety of kinky sex acts when, in reality, he had just been killed by a hot girl. And no one would know.

He lifted his head slowly, trying to get one last look at Kelly's denim-clad behind as she bent over, possibly to throw up too, before he passed out and died. As far as final things to see went, that was a good one. It was weird to think that this was the girl he went to high school with, and she was about to murder him. She was the mascot for god's sake. He could see the mascot costume and feel the pink polyester fibers under his fingers, like it was yesterday.

The shadow of the man-spider, who was terrifying with his eight spindly legs and was most _definitely_ not Spider-Man, as the two things were completely different, raised his knife. Dan almost screamed, but stopped himself. Not only was it crazy because this was clearly a hallucination, but the man-spider's knife was going for Kelly.

Dan stared, his head tipping slowly to the side. What the fuck was happening?

Kelly, with her hands on her knees, paused. Even her ponytail, that had fallen over one shoulder, seemed to stop completely. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, her hand slid up her thigh and out of seemingly nowhere (it had to have been somewhere, but Dan was really too busy keeping an eye on her ass to notice), a knife appeared in her hand.

"Oh, shit," Dan muttered. Kelly was about to have a knife fight with the man-spider shadow. And this actually made sense.

The battle was gritty, with lots of erotic grunting. The man-spider knocked Kelly to the ground and stood over her, but she kneed him right in his spider balls. He moaned as she rolled over on top of him, pinning him to the ground. Her breasts heaved, constrained by her tiny bra.

Or maybe all of this was happening in Dan's head-injury muddled mind. He might have chosen to see it that way, considering death was upon him and he was still totally hard. Perhaps Kelly and the man-spider shadow actually just circled around the room a few times until the man-spider stabbed her. Everything was a little too fuzzy to tell the difference.

"Jesus Christ!" Dan wailed as Kelly crumbled to the ground. "You killed her!"

"And she was going to kill you," replied the man-spider shadow.

Dan's jaw dropped. "You can _talk_?"

"Get your head out of your ass, O'Brien." The man-spider shadow stepped into the light and it wasn't a spider at all, but--

" _Sarge_? What are you doing here? How did you find me?"

Sarge, with the black patch over his right eye, held up his large combat knife, still covered with blood, and cut through the ropes that kept Dan bound to the chair. "Find your pants and I'll tell you everything, but I need to know: where's C-Note?"

Dan massaged his chafed wrists, one after the other. "His power source was dying so he uploaded his consciousness onto a USB drive. We put it on a keychain."

"And where's the drive?"

"Michael has it, so, uh..." Dan scratched the back of his neck. "It's probably lost -- it's lost. What's so important about C-USB? He wouldn't tell us anything."

"Because he knows you're a couple of retards," Sarge replied. "He knew what you were cleared to know, and it would have gone against his programming to telling you anything more."

Though wobbly getting up, Dan managed to stand and walk around in the poor light until he found his clothes slung over the wooden railing of the staircase, with his glasses in the pocket of his jeans. He put them on and glanced over at Kelly's body on the floor. "I can't believe you killed Kelly Wheeler."

"She's not dead." Sarge sheathed the large knife and nudged Kelly's body with the toe of his boot. She moaned. "Not yet, anyway."

"Are you just going to leave her here? Her body's going to start to decompose and blood will get everywhere. She'll start to smell, they'll know." Dan stepped into his jeans and pulled them up.

Sarge shrugged. "I'll take care of the body," he replied, and Dan doubted this was the first dead body Sarge had disposed of. "Now do you want to know the answers to some actually important questions, or are you going to waste more of our time?"

Dan figured that was a rhetorical question. He shoved his hands in the armholes of his sweatshirt before bringing it up over his head. "How did you find me?"

"I've been tracking you ever since C-Note powered down. He sent out a beacon that activated the tracking devices I had implanted in both you and Michael when you were working for Cracked."

"I have a -- you put a _tracking device in me_? Where?"

Sarge shrugged. "In one of the conference rooms. You passed out in there, reeking of paint."

"No, not where in the -- where in my body?" Dan sat down on the bottom stair to put on his sneakers. He didn't remember much about the time when Michael had drugged him, but he couldn't remember any phantom pain the next day that couldn't be explained away by the fact that he had huffed a lot of paint. "Please don't say my penis."

"It's in your gums," Sarge said. "Believe me, Dan, I've seen more of your dick in the last five minutes than I've ever wanted to see."

Dan looked down, and, yeah, he was still pretty hard. Where was Michael when he needed him? They could totally have sex in the Arby's bathroom. There were definite advantages to dating a sexual predator. "We need to go find Michael," he said, suddenly determined to get laid, Sarge or no Sarge. "When did you put the tracker in him, anyway?"

"He saw me do yours and asked for one. I put his in his arm. I didn't want to put my hands in his mouth, and, well, you know, the head thing." Sarge pulled a phone out of his pocket and hit a few buttons. "He's... huh. He's here."

"What?" Dan asked. He had already been mentally planning a trip to Delaware or Nova Scotia, or maybe Egypt to find Michael.

"He's here. He's probably upstairs eating a roast beef sandwich." Sarge jerked his head toward the stairs. "Let's go."

"Is there some reason she chose to do this in an Arby's basement?" Dan asked as he followed Sarge upstairs. "There had to be better options."

"Never question an assassin. Not unless you're a badass."

Dan shrugged. He was still pretty woozy, so this was sound reasoning.

They got upstairs, and sure enough, Michael was sitting at a booth with three servings of curly fries and a jamocha shake. He looked up as they approached and his eyes lit up when he saw Dan. "I was looking all over for you!" he exclaimed as he slid out of the vinyl booth. He grabbed Dan and pulled him into an asphyxiating embrace. "And then I got hungry, so I came here."

"I'm so glad," Dan gasped. He wriggled out of Michael's arms, grabbed him around the face, and kissed him. He looked up at Michael and thought about his near-death experience (which could possibly still be going on since he had no idea how severe his concussion was), and all the things he'd been not saying for two years. "I love you, Michael. I'm in love with you. I have been since..." Dan smiled and kissed him again. "I should have told you that a long time ago."

Michael's eyes widened and a grin spread across his face. "I love you, too, Dan. Now, did you get yourself some of that sassafrass assassin ass?"

Dan blinked. Was that all there was going to be in their beautiful moment? "Uh, no, it wasn't like that at all. She tied me to a chair."

"That seems normal."

"No, I -- Mike, I threw up on her."

Michael's brow furrowed. "And that worked for her?"

Dan shrugged. "Well, she did take off her shirt. It was probably because it was covered in puke, but I did see her in just her bra."

"Nice. You want some curly fries?" Michael sat back down in the booth, across from where Sarge seemed to be pointedly ignoring them by keeping them out of his peripheral vision. It was unsurprisingly easy.

"Sounds good," Dan replied, scooting into the booth next to Michael. He picked up the shake and took a sip. "How did you get here?"

"I peed in that."

"What?"

"What?"

Dan held up the cup. "You peed in this? That I just drank out of?"

"Oh." Michael nodded. "Yeah, I did. Sorry."

Dan set the paper cup down on the table and thought about throwing up again. Whether it was because of the pee or the head injury, he couldn't be sure. "I appreciate you apologizing, at least. Tell me next time before I take a drink, okay?"

Michael wrapped his arm around Dan's shoulders and squeezed him hard. "Do you want to know how I got here? It was _awesome_."

"Yeah, I'm curious." Dan considered the effects of a curly fry on his delicate stomach, and decided against it. He glanced up at Michael, who hadn't said another word. "Were you going to tell me what happened?"

"Did you say something? Check it out, curly fries." Michael grabbed a handful of fries and shoved them in his mouth. "How'd you know?" he asked around his mouthful of food.

"Know what? You ordered these. How did you find me? You remember what you were doing an hour ago, right?" It was entirely possible that Michael _didn't_ remember. He sometimes couldn't even remember something from a minute ago. "You were going to tell me."

"Oh, yeah. It was _awesome_."


	6. Desperation. Exhilaration. Defecation.

Back to the day before...

"DAAAAAAAAAAN!" Michael fell to his knees and clutched his hands to his chest. "NOOOOOOOOOO! My best friend, the love of my life, stolen and sold into sex slavery, to have his arms lopped off, wobbling around unbalanced on his little Gumby-legs, only to be a moist hole for some Russian bodybuilder with testicles down to her ankles."

Michael fell forward, digging his fingers into the soft earth, the moss covering his hands like gloves as the rain dripped down the back of his shirt. He'd seen a lot of terrible things on the streets, but nothing was worse than seeing Dan slapped out cold with a giant dildo and shoved into a van with a black bag slung over his head.

He was surely dead.

Tears welled up in Michael's eyes. He was alone in the world now. He was like one of those super-dorks in Dan's comic books. And now he had nothing at all, nothing except for these two backpacks full of supplies and -- hey, there were snacks in there.

Michael rolled over onto his back and then sat up. He pulled one of the packs into his lap and dug through it until he found the foil pack of blue raspberry Gushers. He ripped it open and dumped half the package into his mouth.

The candy stuck to his molars as he shoveled another handful in his mouth, chewing on it loudly like a wad of gum. He looked up at the bits of purplish sky he could see through the trees and shivered. It was getting cold with the sunset and there was no one to snuggle with. Who was that guy, again? The dead one. He had a name. He had to have had a name. Was it T-Bone? Michael gummed on the Gushers, letting the sugary liquid run down his chin. Yeah, it was definitely T-Bone. With the glasses.

He swallowed his mouthful of candy and licked the blue-flavored goo from around the corners of his lips. He couldn't sit here forever. He got to his feet, dusted off his backside with his dirty hands, and looked around the forest, what light there was quickly fading into shadows.

"T-Bone is dead," he said to no one in particular, "so it's time for me to move on with my life. I must fulfill the prophecy. I need to head back west, open a mini-mall, buy a camel, and kill the king of Mexico. Wherever that is."

Michael looked around and there was no one to reply to him. He frowned. Talking was better when there was someone there to listen, but it wasn't absolutely necessary. He could keep talking.

He transferred all the snacks from T-Bone's abandoned backpack into his own, with the sleeping bag and the tent, though Michael had no idea how to actually set up the tent. T-Bone had told him to do something with it, T-Bone hadn't either. They needed C-Note back, because he was the only one who could do it.

Michael reached into his pocket and pulled out the keychain with C-USB on it. "WHERE ARE YOU?" he screamed, holding the drive in the palm of his hand. "WHERE IS YOUR ROBOT SOUL? WHERE DO YOU KEEP IT? Your brain is tiny. You're a clown and everyone knows clowns don't go to Heaven."

C-USB didn't reply.

"Fine, you sexy devil. Keep your secrets."

_("Where's the USB drive now?" Sarge asked. "You still have it, right?"_

_"Jesus," Dan muttered. "You put that drive in your ass, didn't you?"_

_"I'M TELLING THE STORY!" Michael replied. He grabbed all the curly fries, pulled them toward him until they spilled into his lap. He picked one up off his red and yellow striped pajama bottoms and popped it in his mouth. "If I may continue, and I will.")_

With his backpack full, Michael started walking in the dark. The fact that he had no idea where he was going meant nothing. There was something about moss. However, if there was anything that Michael knew, it was that everything would always work out. He could walk until he reached California. It couldn't be that far away, could it? Where was he, again?

He walked until his eyelids began to droop and he was running into trees in the darkness. Unable to set up the tent or unroll the sleeping bag, he found a grassy slope to sleep on. He shivered in the springtime cold, so he cuddled with his backpack for warmth. It wasn't a goat or T-Bone, but it did the trick.

Michael woke with the rising sun, his back hurting from sleeping on the hard ground. His mouth tasted like sleep, so he ate another pack of Gushers, and then he pissed against an angry looking tree that totally had it coming.

"Fuck you," said the tree.

"Fuck _you_ ," said Michael, and pissed harder until he could piss no more. "Asshole," he added, making sure every drop he shook off splattered against the bark. He tucked his dick back into his pants and he began to run. "COME AT ME, BITCH!" he shouted over his shoulder at the tree as he scampered away. "SEE HOW FAR YOU CAN GET WITH YOUR ROOT FEET. YOU WILL DIE FIRST, DICK WEED."

"CURSE YOU, MICHAEL SWAIM!" the tree shouted back at him, swinging its branches. "YOU WILL RUE THE DAY YOU WERE BORN AND YOUR DICK IS STUPID!"

Michael stopped on the spot and spun around and then, red faced, screamed at the tree, " _YOUR_ DICK IS STUPID! I HOPE EVERYONE PEES ON YOU! I HOPE THE WHOLE WORLD FINDS YOU, GETS IN LINE, STARTS A CIRCUS, AND PEES ON YOU UNTIL THE END OF TIME."

"I'M TALLER THAN YOU!" the tree yelled as Michael walked away. It waved its branches around impotently. "I'M TALLER THAN YOOOOOOU!"

_("What the_ hell _does this have to do with anything?" Sarge asked, slamming his fists on the table. The veins in his neck and face bulged. Once, Dan found this intimidating, but he was feeling too woozy to be intimidated now._

_"No one gets away with being taller than me," Michael replied as though this explained everything, except that it explained nothing at all._

_Dan picked up a fry from Michael's lap and ate it. It tasted like grease and dirty crotch. "I wish I were dead right now. I wish Kelly had killed me." He wasn't even sure if this sentiment was from Michael's story or because his head felt like it was about to wobble right off._

_"That can be arranged," Sarge said, unsheathing his knife in the middle of Arby's._

_Dan's eyes widened._ Now _was a little intimidated, so he turned back to Michael. "What happened next?")_

Michael skipped through the forest like a quick brown fox jumping over a lazy dog. He didn't know where he was going, but it didn't matter. The wind was cool and the sun was shining through the trees, and he kept going faster.

He tripped and fell face first onto the grass. He turned onto one side and looked at what he'd stumbled over. It was a bomb. Michael cocked his head to one side. Well, how did that get there? He had to disarm it. He saw someone do that once. He crawled over to it and studied the wires. Were there wires? There had to be wires! But how could he be sure? Damn his delusionary wirephasia!

Michael grabbed the wires by the handful and yanked. The red numbers across the front of the bomb disappeared and it didn't explode. Michael threw his hands in the air. "Yaaaaaay!"

"You saved us," said a man in a suit as he stepped out from behind a tree. More people appeared behind him, all of them in business attire. "You have saved the tribe of New York."

"Whoa," Michael said, looking around wildly, looking around wildly. "Where did you come from?"

"We live here," said a woman. "What is your name?"

Michael blinked. These people were savages. He could tell them anything at all and they would believe them. He lowered his voice to a growl. "My name is Batman."

"Batman," the man repeated with reverent awe. He reached up and clapped Michael on the shoulder. "Tonight, Batman, we feast in your honor."

The tribe took Michael back to their treehouse, and he joined them on their hunt. They pulled out their spears and killed a wild pig in the name of Batman. The woman's suit was covered in the pig's blood. Michael leaned over and licked her shoulder. She turned to him and smiled.

Oh, yeah, he was getting laid tonight. It had been, what? A day since he'd had sex last? Who could live like that?

Back at the treehouse, the tribe began to slaughter the pig. Michael looked at them. "Shouldn't we roast this?"

"Roast?" asked the man.

"With fire?"

"What's... fire?"

Michael reached into his pocket. There was C-USB and a silver Zippo. He grabbed the lighter and held it up. "Witness! I bring to you, the Tribe of New York: FIRE!" He flipped wheel against the flint with his thumb and the flame ignited.

There was a collective gasp from the tribe. With his new invention, the tribe got to their knees and began to worship him.

"God!" cried one of the men. "He is a god!"

Michael grinned. "First, we eat roast pig. Then, it's time for an orgy!" He paused as he looked around these uncivilized people. Do you know what an orgy is?"

The woman he had licked earlier appeared at his side. "Of course we do," she said. "For our god."

And then began the mighty feast of pig and apples that would last a week, in between all of the fucking.

_("I'm going to stop you right there, because none of that happened," Dan said. He didn't need to hear about Michael's imaginary sexual experience. Especially since it was probably based on something that actually happened to him out in the woods, and Dan didn't want to figure out what it was._

_"How do you know?" Michael asked, shoving a handful of curly fries in his mouth. "You weren't there," he added, the words muffled around the food._

_"Because it didn't. I can't believe we actually listened to this for as long as we did. For one thing, we've only been separated for a day, not a week. There wasn't a bomb and there wasn't a tribe of New Yorkers. That's not even a thing. And you didn't invent fire. Think about it for a second.")_

Okay, so there wasn't a tribe of people. There was one guy in the woods, and he looked like a tool. A big, fat tool. "Hey there, buddy," he said. "I'm so glad I found you." Michael was pretty sure his name was Dan.

_("I should have seen that coming.")_

"Whoa, is your name Dan?" Michael asked the fat stranger. "You look like a Dan, I think your name is Dan."

The man pushed up his thick-rimmed glasses. "Michael, we've been looking for you everywhere."

Michael looked around at the wilderness. "Here?" That seemed ridiculous even to him. How many other places could this guy look before he started in a forest? There were county fairs, Sea World, abortion clinics, the women's bathroom at the Nederlander Theatre, the Korean student union on any college campus, monkey bars, ice cream trucks, snowmen, incandescent light bulbs, pumpkins, a pizzarito, metal flanges, mutton chops, John Grisham novels, rubber duckies, horse porn, a var of piss, glitter all over the floor, do-do-do-do-do- _do_!

"What the hell are you talking about? Was that the Mario Brother theme song?"

Michael blinked. Had he been talking? Who was this guy? Where was he? "I don't know," he replied. "If you're so smart, you tell me. Ruler of the universe. Guy who knows everything. Who the fuck do you think you are?"

The man wiped a sweaty hand down the front of his white, button-down shirt. "My name is Donald. I need you to come with me."

"Dan told me never to go anywhere with strangers," Michael said, taking a step backward. He wasn't sure Dan had ever actually said that, and if he had, Michael definitely would not have remembered, but this guy gave him some bad vibes. Where the hell was Dan? Why was he alone?

"But I'm not a stranger," Donald replied quickly. "We met at a party."

A party. Michael raised an eyebrow as he thought about this. That sounded right. "Are you friends with Pikachu Paul?"

"What? No. Here." Donald reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of brightly colored foil-wrapped chocolates. "I have candy."

"Why the hell didn't you say that in the first place?" Michael asked, rushing forward. He greedily snatched the candy from Donald's hand and then flopped onto the ground, pulling open the first wrapper. With his mouth full of chocolate, he looked up at Donald. "Do I know you? We've met. Don't tell me you were at Pikachu Paul's orgy."

"We met at at a party," Donald said, his voice becoming increasingly stressed. "I just said that not even a minute ago. I don't know any Pikachus. It was the annual meeting of the Chiefs."

Chiefs. This sounded familiar. Michael crammed another chocolate in his mouth, throwing the wrapper to the ground, and then looked up at Donald with narrowed eyes. He knew that face. He'd seen this guy before and it wasn't Dan. This asshole had eaten Michael's butter.

Michael spat out the chocolate with disgust. "You disgust me!"

Donald stared at him. "What?"

"I know who you are. I know what you did, and I know where the fuck you sleep." Michael reached into the hollow beneath the nearest tree and retrieved a large kitchen knife. He got to his feet and approached Donald slowly. He loved the look of fear in Donald's eyes as he backed up, holding his hand in the air.

"I don't want any trouble, Michael. I just want to take you back to my house for some more candy. And ponies. There's ponies."

" _Fuck_ ponies," Michael replied, all the hatred of this pathetic butter stealing bastard spilling out in his voice. He held up the knife, the light from the sun glittering against its shiny, steel blade. "You ate my butter. Do you remember that, Chief? You remember eating my butter? It was _mine_ , and I never forget."

Donald stared at him. "This is not going to look good on my performance review."

Michael lowered the knife. "Did you say something? What was that?"

"What?"

"Do you have candy? I thought you said you had candy." Michael held the knife up again and grinned. "You're not going to deny me your candy, are you, witch?"

"I don't even know what you're saying," Donald replied, his brow furrowed. "You just said you never forget. I gave you all the candy, already, not even five minutes ago, and you spat it on the ground."

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!" Michael lunged forward and sank the knife into Donald's throat. Blood spurted everywhere, all over Michael's hands and his clothes as he and Donald fell to the ground in a heap. "I WANT TO KILL YOU IN YOUR FACE!" he screamed, stabbing Donald again for effect. "WHY WOULD I SPIT OUT PERFECTLY GOOD CANDY? WHAT DID YOU DO?"

Below him, Donald lay still, but Michael stabbed him a couple more times, just in case, before rising to his feet. He dropped the knife and stared at what he had just done. A man was dead, violently murdered in the woods, his necktrails spilling everywhere. Soon, the animals would come and eat his flesh until he was nothing but bone. And then those bones would rise up and make a squirrel its bitch.

Yes, that's exactly how it would happen.

Michael looked down, and -- hey, there was free candy. He snatched up the blob of chocolate from the ground with his sticky, blood-coated fingers and shoved it in his mouth. Still grassy.

As much as being on his own had been a complete and utter success, that was when Michael decided that he needed to go find Dan. It'd been awhile since Dan had been kidnapped and made into a sex slave, so he was probably ready to get out of there. Dan _always_ needed rescuing, and there was only one person who could do that. One person in the world who could always save the day: Dan's hero, Michael Swaim.

Now that he was walking with the pace of man determined, it wasn't a long trek to the highway. In fact, it was easy. He walked along the curvy road until a pick-up truck pulled up next to him, and the window, still covered in morning dew, rolled down, revealing a heavyset woman with curly brown hair. She wore a flannel shirt and her red nail polish was chipped to varying degrees on each finger.

"Hey, darling," she said with a smile. "You need a ride?" Her smile faded as she saw the bloodstains that covered Michael from head to toe. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, this?" Michael motioned to his shirt, and she nodded. "Don't worry, none of this blood is mine." He started laughing. "You should see the other guy!"

She considered him for a moment, and then leaned over to pop open the door. "Well, get in. You'll catch your death out here. It's freezing this time of morning. Where are you heading?"

Michael tossed his backpack in the bed. He climbed into the cab and slammed the door shut. He pointed forward and said, "I'm going that way."

"Well, that's the way I'm going."

He grinned. Everything always worked out. He leaned his head against the window and popped his thumb into his mouth. It didn't take long for Michael to fall asleep, soothed by the rumble of the engine and the movement of the truck.

When he woke up, he didn't know long he'd been asleep. It could been hours or it could have been days. It was all the same to him. "Where are we?"

"About half an hour outside Plattsburgh," the woman replied. She probably had a name, but it was irrelevant.

Her words meant nothing to Michael. "That means nothing to me," he said. He looked out the window at the passing fast food restaurants, and his stomach rumbled. "Stop. Stop here, I'm hungry."

"I gotta keep moving," she replied. "If I drop you off, you're staying here."

"Let me out," Michael insisted, about to grab the wheel from her if she didn't what he said in the next three, two... two... two... eight? Why were numbers so _hard_?

"Darling?"

"Huh?" Michael looked at the woman, and realized the car had stopped moving. "Oh," he said and climbed out of the truck. There was no sidewalk, just a concrete curb so cars wouldn't drive on the grass. He grabbed his backpack out of the truck bed and gave the woman a wave. "Thanks!"

She drove off and Michael started walking through parking lots. McDonald's, Burger King, Long John Silver's -- did those still exist? He was about to go inside to investigate when he spotted the Arby's in the next lot over. Curly fries.

He skipped over to the Arby's, dragging the backpack behind him. He slowed only when he got closer to the building, and slipped between two of the neatly trimmed hedges. He pulled down his pants, the front of them crusted and hard from the dried blood, and squatted to poop.

* * *

"And then I was here," Michael said gamely. He picked the the last curly fry from his lap and popped it in his mouth.

"Why did you poop outside?" Dan asked, resting a hand on Michael's shoulder. "Why didn't you come inside and use the bathroom?"

"It's a restaurant, Dan. There aren't bathrooms. There's food in here."

"I guess that explains the milkshake. And, yes, Mike, they do. They all have bathrooms. I think it's a law."

Michael's eyes widened and he turned his neck an an impossible angle, reminding Dan of a very tall owl. "Really."

"When did you change clothes? You're not covered in blood anymore."

"I changed in the -- was _that_ the bathroom?"

Sarge slammed both fists on the table. "Will you two _shut the hell up _? What the hell is wrong with you?" He sat back in his seat, the veins in his neck seemed to relax. "Michael, are you telling me that you killed a Chief?"__

__"Is that what I said?" Michael asked. "He's not the first guy I've killed."_ _

__"I can vouch for that," Dan added._ _

__Sarge rolled his eye. "It doesn't matter. You can't kill a Chief. They're immortal. They don't die, no matter what you do to them. They've lived through wars and time. Just time. We can't even conceive. Are you sure he's dead?"_ _

__Michael shrugged. "He looked pretty dead to me. Didn't I mention the necktrails?"_ _

__Dan chewed on his lower lip. "Do you think it's possible that Michael has some... magic ability to kill them if he really wants to? If he really wants something, he gets it. It just happens. All the time."_ _

__"That sounds right," Michael said with a nod._ _

__"Is this a good thing or a bad thing?" Dan asked. "It means there's one less Chief, and that can't be bad, right? But it might just piss off the rest of them."_ _

__"They were already pissed," Sarge replied. "The Chief has been in hiding for weeks, since the Order found out you guys were alive."_ _

__"Yeah, I know, and I'm still pissed about that," Dan said. "Since it seems like everyone knew where we were, and we had no idea. We didn't even know until someone was shooting at us!"_ _

__"Yeah, but guns are cool," Michael said. He picked up the little paper cup of ketchup and squeezed it so the ketchup got all over his hands._ _

__Sarge waved Dan off. "You had C-Note. He took care of you when you needed to be taken care of. Where is C-Note?"_ _

__Both Sarge and Dan turned to Michael who was licking his fingers. He popped his thumb out of his mouth and looked back and forth between them. "What?"_ _

__"C-USB," Dan said. "What did you do with him?"_ _

__"Oh, C-USB? Right here." He dropped a hand below the table and reached into his pocket. He pulled out the USB drive and dropped it on the table. "I told you I could take care of it."_ _

__"I'm legitimately surprised," Dan said with a smile. He reached up and ruffled Michael's hair. "Good job."_ _

__Michael beamed and then sucked the last of the ketchup from between his thumb and forefinger._ _

__Sarge picked up the drive and then glanced up at Michael. "This wasn't in your ass, was it?"_ _

__"That I can neither confirm nor deny, mostly because I don't know, but if I were you, I wouldn't take chances. I just never know what I'm going to do next," Michael replied and Sarge dropped the drive back onto the table. "Or what I did before. Or what I will do after that. Or before it."_ _

__"Right. O'Brien, you take this," Sarge said. "It's not anywhere you haven't been."_ _

__"It's not like that and, and that doesn't make this less gross," Dan replied, but he took the USB drive anyway. "What's so important about C-USB anyway? I get it when he helped us when he was a robot, but now he's just a flash drive."_ _

__"He's still useful," Sarge replied. "There's only one way in, and C-Note is the only one who knows the technology."_ _

__Dan's eyes widened. "We're going to the Chief's mansion, aren't we? Do you think that's a good idea? Going right into the lion's den? We were going because we didn't think there was anyone else, but you're here now. When we had C-Note, he made it pretty clear that we should only be there as last resort."_ _

__"Because you screw things up. Look where being on your own got you."_ _

__"Yes, look at it. I don't think you would even want us there. We will make it worse. That's what we do."_ _

__"No, you're not going to be out of my sight. We're going to do this together."_ _

__Michael thrust his fist into the middle of table. "Teamwork!"_ _

__Dan reached up and gently pulled Michael's hand back. He looked across the table at Sarge, his eye-patch now on the left side. "What's going to happen next?"_ _

__Sarge glared at Dan with a narrowed eye and growled. "We're going to end this."_ _


	7. The Battle of the Minesweeper

Dan set his glasses down on the counter. He pulled his shirt up over his head and tossed it in the trash. It smelled like dirt, sweat, and basement, and he never wanted to see it again. He turned on the faucet and splashed water under his arms. It wasn't a shower, just what he could do with the cheap, commercial soap in an Arby's bathroom, but it was better than nothing.

Michael hopped onto the counter between the two sinks, his heels banging against the cabinets below. "I missed you when you were gone."

Dan could have pointed out that Michael referred to him as T-Bone for most of that story (and he couldn't even be sure if Michael had forgotten his name the night before or it slipped his mind when he was telling the story), but instead he smiled. "It was a day. It wasn't even a full day. It was overnight." He paused. He'd been knocked out most of the night, but he still added, "I missed you, too."

"I thought you were dead." He kept his chin pressed to his chest and when Dan ducked his head down to get a look at Michael's face, he saw that Michael appeared to be sad. Like he'd actually been worried. Dan was suddenly reminded of his last day in California, when he agreed to let Michael come with him. He'd been so sad, and Dan hadn't been able to stand it.

Someday, Dan _would_ die and Michael wouldn't, and Michael would be left alone. It was something he would have to deal with someday, and he probably wouldn't remember Dan after a few days, except for some fond memories of Tape Guy. That hurt, somewhere deep in his chest, but at least Michael would go on. Or at least Dan was pretty sure Michael would. They didn't think Chiefs could die, but that happened. So maybe it could happen, even to the guy who had survived two head explosions. Dan couldn't stand the thought of that, either.

Jesus, he really was in love, wasn't he? Fuck.

"Hey." Dan stepped to the side, between Michael's legs and rested his hands on Michael's knees. "I'm fine. I'm concussed, but fine."

Michael sniffed loudly and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "Yeah, I know."

"Since when do you worry?" Dan asked. He coughed, but it might have been a laugh. "About anything? Least of all me?"

Michael shrugged with one shoulder and ran his long fingers down the front of Dan's bare chest. He poked a nipple. "I wouldn't last a week out there."

A slow smile spread across Dan's face. It was weirdly sweet. He reached up and touched Michael's cheek. "If we make it through this alive, then... I'll try not to die later." He made a face. That didn't sound very good.

However, Michael grinned and slid his hand around the back of Dan's head. Dan cringed when Michael brushed across the giant lump, but he didn't pull away or stop him. "You want to have sex?" Michael asked.

"Yes." Dan didn't hesitate. He grabbed the front of Michael's tee shirt and pulled him down until their mouths met. Michael's tongue was warm and slimy in his mouth, but it was comforting.

"Fag," Michael muttered, their lips still together.

Dan snorted. "You're the fag," he replied. He dropped his hands to the front of Michael's pants and rubbed his erection through the soft fabric of the pajama bottoms. He tried to remember the last time Michael showered. He sniffed and, yeah, no, Michael wasn't getting a blowjob today. Unless, well... Dan was alive, and while two years ago, he couldn't imagine wanting that weird dick in his mouth, but that was exactly what he wanted right then.

They could fuck and get clean at the same time.

He reached around Michael and pumped soap into his hand. "Take off your shirt."

Michael furrowed his brow. "I thought we were gonna have sex."

"We -- why wouldn't you take your shirt off for sex?" Dan shook his head. They didn't have all day. "Never mind. Just take it off. We're going to clean up and have sex. Before Sarge comes in here, demanding we leave, dressed or not."

The sex was quick, but unsurprisingly fantastic, though it took Dan forever to rinse the soap from his pubes afterward, pouring cupped handfuls of water over them. After he got dressed in clean clothes, he dug around in his backpack for toothpaste. His mouth tasted like soap.

Once they were both relatively clean and dressed, Dan slung his backpack over one shoulder (Michael wore his backpack over his chest), checked to make sure that C-USB was safe in his pocket, and they headed out to the parking lot. There was a yellow mini-van, the kind with the fake wood paneling on the side, parked in a handicap spot. Sarge sat in the driver's seat, his elbow sticking out the window.

"Took you long enough. Get in."

"Shotgun!" Michael exclaimed and ran around to the passenger side. He flung the door open and jumped in, backpack still on his front.

Dan smiled and followed him. He pulled open the sliding door and blinked. Kelly Wheeler was sitting in the backseat. She was wearing a thin, white tank top, and he could see her purple bra right through it, along with a big white bandage on her side where she'd been stabbed.

"What the hell are you doing in our car?"

She looked up at him. "I'm on your side now."

"Bullshit you are. Since _when_? When you were shooting at us, or when you were bludgeoning me on the head or when you were trying to get me to tell you where Michael was so you could kill him?

She pointed to the front seat. "Michael is right there and I'm clearly not killing him."

"O'Brien, get in," Sarge barked, twisted around so he could see Dan with his left eye. "We'll explain it on the way."

Dan hesitated, but he let the backpack slide from his shoulder and tossed it in the third row of seats. He climbed into the van and pulled the door shut. He plopped down next to Kelly. "I'm in. Explain it to me."

"I don't owe you anything," Kelly said. "I'm not killing you, so who cares?"

"You're not killing us _now_ , but I don't know how to sleep with one eye open," Dan replied. It was something he probably should have learned, living with Michael, but there wasn't exactly a WikiHow page for that. He figured he'd just been lucky so far. Or maybe C-Note had stopped Michael's assassination attempts when he thought Dan was a clone (which, considering past experience, wasn't entirely unheard of) and was trying to steal his soul. Assuming Michael had a soul. Dan still wasn't sure how all of this worked.

Kelly threw a hand in the air. "I don't know what to tell you. Sarge spared my life, so now I owe him. Switching teams seemed like the easiest way to repay the debt."

"So you think we're going to win?"

"Definitely not. I think we're all going to die, but it's going to be more exciting this way." She grinned. "Turning on my current employers is pretty much a death sentence. They're not getting the money back that they paid me upfront, either. That car that I wrecked in the city? That's what I bought. I knew you weren't going to outrun me in that stupid station wagon."

Dan frowned. "You've changed."

"Probably because I kill people now." She winked at him and shrugged. "I don't know what you want me to tell you. You're not going to trust me either way."

That was true enough, but on the other hand, they now had someone who had seen somewhat into the Chiefs' plan. "Do you think they hired you just because you knew us?"

Kelly nodded. "Probably. I'm good at my job, but there are better assassins out there. Slicker, more seasoned. I've only been doing this a couple of years. But even the deadlier assassins aren't going to be able to predict what you guys are going to do. I had a hard enough time finding you as it was."

"How _did_ you find us? I thought C-Note set us up all right."

"I'm really good at my job and you guys are weird."

"That's not a real answer."

"That's the answer you're getting."

"Okay." Dan sank further down in his seat. He didn't really like this. It was only an hour and a half ago that Kelly had him tied to a chair with a gun in his face. However, Sarge brought her in and he had to trust someone. Sarge, even through all the insults and shouting, always had their best interest in mind.

Dan tried to keep himself awake. That was what you were supposed to do with a concussion, wasn't it? Could he die if he fell asleep? That would be disappointing, after all of this, to die from falling asleep.

However, he still nodded off and managed not to die. He opened his eyes and he was still in the van, not in Hell or anything. He turned his head and jumped. There was Michael's face, not three inches away from his own. He shied away as best as he could, buckled into the seat.

"Jesus, Michael, what are you doing?"

"We're in Canada!" Michael replied. He hand out a handful of beef jerky. "Do you want a Slim Jim?"

Even though Dan hadn't eaten anything except a couple of curly fries, he shook his head. "How are we in Canada? None of us have passports and I don't think Sarge even officially exists. And Kelly has a gun. I don't think they allow guns in Canada."

Michael shrugged. "Sarge just showed the guy some paper and they let us on through."

Of course they did. Dan ran his hands over his face, pushing his glasses up with his fingers. There was a dull pain throbbing at the back of his head, and he felt worse after sleeping in the car. The overwhelming smell of Slim Jims made him queasy. "You mind if I sit up front? I'm not feeling too hot."

Michael's brow furrowed as he studied Dan's face. "You do appear doughy." He poked Dan's cheek. "You take the front. I was doing this crossword puzzle book, but all the answers were Hitler. I might have better luck back here."

"Why would anyone make a crossword puzzle where all the answers were the same thing?" Dan asked, and as he said it, he wondered if he was asking the wrong question. Like, maybe, why Hitler? Or, why would the answers be different in the back seat? Or, when did Michael learn to read?

Dan didn't ask any of those questions. Instead, he unbuckled his seatbelt and climbed into the front seat. He used the crank to roll down the window a few inches and glanced out the window at Sarge and Kelly, who were standing close to each other talking. Sarge looked like he was threatening her, but when wasn't he threatening someone?

Sarge tossed Kelly the keys and they started walking toward the van. He climbed into the back with Michael, while Kelly slid into the driver's seat. She turned her eyes to Dan, a little surprised to see him there. "You don't look too hot."

No one ever thought Dan was hot. "It might be my concussion," he said, pointing to his head.

"Oh. Right." She started the van and pulled away from the gas pump with a loud screech of the tires.

Over the last few days, Dan had seen his fair share of crazy drivers, but Kelly had to have been the worst. Of course, she was the one who had purposefully run her car into theirs in the middle of a busy New York City cross street. What should he expect? Dan was beginning to wonder if Kelly was simply insane.

Dan lolled his head against the back of the seat and let the cool air rush against his face. They hadn't been on the road for very long when he heard a loud snore from behind. He twisted around and saw Michael flopped over the first row of seats, his arms and legs dangling over the sides. In the last row, Sarge appeared to be asleep, but Dan couldn't be sure, since _he_ seemed to have a handle on sleeping with one eye open.

Slowly, Dan turned his gaze to Kelly. "So, we're going to die?" he asked.

She nodded. "Probably."

He nodded, and he only felt dizzy for a second. Maybe it was getting better. How fast did concussions heal? He had no idea, but he was pretty sure it took more than a few hours. "Since we're going to die, probably very soon, do you want to fuck?"

Kelly lifted an eyebrow, but didn't look at him. "I'm driving."

That wasn't a no, which was more than he was expecting. "I think you know how to fuck and drive."

The corners of her mouth turned up into a smile. "It wouldn't be the first time. What about Michael?"

"I thought you didn't want to do that again."

"You know what I mean."

Dan did. He sighed. "He's always trying to get me to sleep with other people, and I never do. If he were awake, he'd be encouraging this."

Kelly looked at him, keeping her eyes off the road for far too long for comfort. "I'm not going to sleep with you, Dan."

"Because of Michael? I'm telling you, he wants me to."

"No, because _I_ don't want to. Because I never wanted to. You never would have actually slept with me in high school. The only reason I slept with you two years ago was because it seemed like a good idea at the time. And I just had sex with Sarge in the gas station bathroom. Because we're going to die soon. So, I'm good."

Dan blinked. "Oh. Jesus. I think he's had sex with every girl I've ever liked."

Kelly smiled. "You still have Michael."

He turned around again. Michael's mouth was open, his tongue lolling from the side, and he had a boner. Of course he did. Dan smiled, too. "Yeah, I guess I do."

The hours passed and Kelly turned on the dim headlights as the sun set in the west, something it had a tendency to do. The darkness seemed to enclose around them, like it had done in the forests of upstate New York. There weren't even streetlamps on these roads.

As they continued to drive, now in the night, Dan had no idea where they were going. They would be on one long stretch of road for miles, and then Kelly would turn onto another narrower road. Now, they were on a loud gravel road riddled with potholes.

"Are we there yet?" Michael asked from the back seat as he yawned and stretched his hands above his head. He made some loud noises with his mouth and looked around the van.  
"Almost," Kelly said, turning as the gravel road turned suddenly into smooth pavement. "It's at the end of this street. They sure like their privacy, don't they?"

"Why else would you go to Canada?" Dan asked. He was going to say more, but then he saw the glow of the blue laser fence around the Chief's mansion. He'd been to the mansion in LA, but this one had to be twice as big with a massive bay window in the front. "Holy Toledo. How are we supposed to get in there?"

Sarge appeared between the two front seats as Kelly brought the van to a stop. "You still have C-Note?"

Dan reached into his pocket and pulled out the flash drive. "Yeah, of course."

Sarge motioned like he was going to take the drive, but then stopped himself, probably thinking about where it might have been. "C-Note's gonna get us in. It's times like these you need a robot."

"But he's not a robot anymore. He's just a USB stick. If we were hacking a computer, I could understand, but... shouldn't we be snipping wires somewhere? Or punching in security codes? How do you hack a fence?"

"Dan, if I wanted you think... we'd be in a hell of a lot of trouble. A lot worse than we're in now. C-Note _is_ the code. He's had all the codes programmed into him by the Chief a long time ago, back when he was still T-Bone. He can get into any of the Chief's mansions anywhere in the world."

"That... that makes sense," Dan said, mostly to himself because no one listening to him. "I'm not used to that."

Sarge gazed through the windshield at the mansion with his left eye. "Getting through the fence is the least of our worries. The ground is embedded with pressure-activated mines, and then there's the invisible assassins." He pulled out his knife and looked around like they might be under attack _right then_. "They could be anywhere."

"And that's just getting in the door," Kelly added. "C-Note should get us inside with the electronic locks, but we're on our own after that. All of the Chiefs are inside, each one of them with their strengths and powers."

"So, shouldn't Michael and I stay in the car?" Dan asked. "C-Note's plan was for us to stay in the woods while he told them we were dead. Isn't that what you're going to do?"

"That was the old plan," Sarge replied. "That was before we knew Michael could kill them."

Michael's jaw dropped and his eyes went wide. "GASP! Since _when_?"

"Since you killed one!" Dan exclaimed. "You told us all about it. With the necktrails? Remember, the Chiefs? The ones that ate your butter?"

"My butter!" Michael's hands curled into fists and his eyes grew dark with rage. "I'm going to kill them all!"

"Bingo," Sarge said. "Let's go."

They piled out of the van, the strangest crew Dan had ever seen: The hardened war vet, the trained assassin, who was suddenly fighting with them, the retarded god-like creature, and then Dan. Who was completely useless.

They walked in a line around the length of the fence until Sarge led them to one of the posts and popped open the service door. "All right, Dan, plug C-Note in and let him do his work."

Dan fumbled getting the keychain out of his pocket, and then pulled off the cap. He was surprised to see there was a place to put a flash drive on the service panel, but maybe robots did all the maintenance on these fences. What did he know?

He plugged in the drive and there was a loud whirring noise. He glanced over at Sarge. "Don't you think someone will notice when the fences go down?"

"Probably, yeah."

"And the mines?"

"I have a map of where the mines are located," Kelly said, pulling a sheet of paper from her pocket. "Well, kind of. I stole this when they hired me. The mines are on a grid, and it's coded. The code is easy enough, but, well... is anyone good at Minesweeper?"

"Ooh!" Michael snatched the paper out of her hand and studied it. He slowly raised his head to look out at the grounds. "This would be easier if I had a duck and a carton of milk, but I can do this."

Kelly glanced over at Dan, questioning this with a look, and he nodded.

"If there's anything he can do, it's play a video game. He's good at Minesweeper. He can beat the advanced level in just a few minutes."

"But you won't let me play Hearts anymore," Michael grumbled.

Dan rolled his eyes. "If you'd just understand that the computer players aren't real, and they can't hear you through the speakers, then maybe you could."

The whirring noise stopped, and they were suddenly encased in darkness, with only the glow of warm lights from the mansion to see by, as the bright blue laser fence went out.

Michael spun around. "What just happened?"

Dan rested his hand on Michael's arm. "It's okay, buddy. That's supposed to happen." He turned to look at Sarge. "Do we take C-USB with us? Is there something else he can do?"

"He's in the system now," Sarge replied. "He's already in the house. We have to get moving now or we'll never make it before they spot us. Michael, you're on."

Michael held up the paper map and looked out at the length of the grass that separated them from the house. "Step lightly," he said, linking his arm with Dan's. "Danger's afoot."

"Maybe I should... walk behind you," Dan said slowly.

"Get moving!" Sarge barked. "There's only so much time before they'll know the fence is out."

Dan cringed, but he moved with Michael as they stepped forward. He craned his neck and tried to see the sheet of paper. It just looked like a grid, with no signs or symbols about where to go without getting blown to bits. "Are you sure you know how to work that thing?"

"There's two mines right here," Michael replied, motioning to the section of grass next to them and the one directly in front of them. "Walk sideways."

Dan held his breath as they moved diagonally, but there was no explosion. Kelly and Sarge walked behind them in their footsteps.

"There's three here," Michael said. "The one behind us, this one, and... I think it's that one."

"You _think_?" Dan asked.

"It's that one," Michael said with more certainty, and pulled Dan with him as he took a big step forward.

Dan's heart was pounding in his throat. God damn it, he was shaking. How the hell was it that the got this far and managed to live? His death was just inevitable, and now there wouldn't even be a body to identify. Maybe someone would know it was him from a tooth fragment.

"Daniel."

He looked up at Michael, who was smiling calmly down at him. "Yeah?"

"You're not going to die here. I'm not going to let you. We're going to get through this."

Dan took a slow breath. "Oh, I... thanks, Michael. That means a lot."

"You're probably going to die once we get inside."

He stared at Michael, and it was weird. That shouldn't have been comforting, but it was the sort of blunt honesty he needed right then. "Really, Mike, thanks."

Michael grinned and bumped Dan with his elbow. "No problem, buddy."

The closer to the house they got, the denser the mines became, with less margin for error, but Michael impressed Dan at every turn, moving diagonally and once even moving back before heading back toward the house to avoid the mines.

Michael looked down at his map and around at the yard. "I don't know. I don't know," he muttered. "It's the colors and the numbers. Six. Five. Seventy. Bomb, blow 'em up, twenty-two!"

"Michael?" Dan asked. They were only steps from the door. It wasn't the time for him to start panicking. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know which one it is!" Michael wailed. He pointed to their right. "The mine could be there, or it could be the one in front of us. It's a five-eighteen shot."

At least he was using numbers. Dan unwound his arm from Michael's and took his hand. "You said you weren't going to let me die, and for some reason, I believe you. Do you remember what you said to me yesterday? That I changed you? You're right, I did, and I'm sorry. But this is your moment, Michael. You and I both know that everything works out for you. That's who you are. You're not going to choose the wrong one. So which one is it?"

"It's..." Michael looked back and forth between the map in his shaking hands and the ground in front of them. "It's the one to the side," he said with finality. "We move forward."

Dan must have gotten braver in the last fifteen minutes, because he squeezed Michael's hand and smiled. "Let's go, then. Even so, he closed his eyes tightly as they took the step forward.

They hadn't blown up. He opened his eyes, and they were right in front of the concrete steps. "We're not dead, yet!" Dan exclaimed.

"We're not dead, yet!" Michael echoed, throwing his arms around Dan's neck.

"Not yet," Sarge said, pushing in between them to walk up the stairs. "We still have a long way to go."

The front door was unlocked when they got there, compliments of C-Note. Sarge walked in first, combat knife out, followed by Michael and Dan, both unarmed, and Kelly walked in last with her gun in her hands and her knife strapped to her thigh.

"Holy shit," Dan muttered as he looked around at the ornate foyer, the walls made of dark wood, with two huge staircases on either side of the room that led to the second floor. Flanking the staircases were six foot tall statues of celestial beings, carved from the same dark wood with a intricate detail. As though someone had been out in the cosmos, seeing these things firsthand.

He looked to Sarge. "Where do we go? What do we do?"

Sarge turned away from him. "You keep your mouth shut. They already know we're here, or we never would have made it in the door."

That doesn't make any sense, Dan thought, but he kept his mouth closed.

"Where are the invisible assassins?" Michael asked, looking around. "I was promised invisible assassins."

"Well, they're invisible," Dan said. "You can't see them."

"That's never stopped me before."

Dan couldn't argue with that. He watched as Sarge walked backwards around the huge foyer, and Kelly kept an eye on the exits and entrances. Michael picked his glasses up from around his neck and put them on, and then stared up at the ornate chandelier.

If there was anything Dan had become accustomed to over the years, it was a constant feeling of dread. However, now it began to consume him. Here they were. Past the mines, and into the mansion, and now they were going to die.

He was about to say as much, to have some sort of fantastic last line, when he was grabbed around the middle and was dragged up one side of the staircase.

"No!" Dan screamed at God, or whoever was controlling this. There had to be some kind of maniacal, awful being making all of this happen. Someone who hated him. Who _hated_ him. They had to. There was no other reason for this. "I've already been kidnapped once! You've used this plot point already!"

But no one listened, and Dan was dragged away.


	8. Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies

The invisible assassins poured into the room. They came down the stairs and in through the doors. Michael couldn't count how many there were because they were invisible. There could have been a hundred. Or a million. Though actually, there were about twenty. One would assume that having twenty invisible assassins on staff at any given time would take care of your average intruder.

However, these were not average intruders.

Shots fired from Kelly's gun, and blood spilled onto the floor from seemingly nowhere, while Sarge jammed his combat knife into a space of air, and his hand came back bloody.

Michael's eyes went wide as he stared. "That's so cool," he mumbled to himself. He threw a hand in the air and exclaimed, "Punch!" His hand came in contact with something, and there was a thump. He kicked the air, and shouted, "Kick!" It felt like his foot went solidly into someone's stomach, followed by the sound of someone hitting the ground. Was he killing people? Possibly. Probably. That seemed like one way to kill a person. Either way, this seemed to be working.

"This isn't working!" Kelly shouted over the noise of so many bodies in the same room. She threw her gun away and pulled the knife out from its holster around her thigh. "We've got to get somewhere else!"

Michael spun around (punching an assassin in the process, but definitely not on purpose). "Dan. Where's Dan?" There was panic in his voice.

Sarge turned a full circle to get a good look around the room, knife in the air. Blood sprayed across his face in a fine mist. "Did he run?"

"He wouldn't!" Michael exclaimed. "He's frail and pasty, and useless in a fight, but he's no coward. If there's anything I know about Dan, it's that. And it's pretty much only that. He's the one with the glasses, right? " He paused and with terrible horror added, "Gasp! They have him!"

"Why would they take _him_?" Kelly asked. "You're right here. You're the one they want dead."

"Well, maybe they're afraid that I'm going to kill them," Michael replied.

Both Sarge and Kelly stopped fighting. They stopped everything, and they stared at Michael as though he'd never said a coherent sentence before in his life. Which was entirely possible.

"It's a hostage situation," Sarge said. He licked his bloody lips.

"We have to find him," Kelly said. "We can't let them have anything over us." And then she doubled over and fell to the ground in a heap, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Blood began to spread through her tank top.

Sarge stabbed his knife into the air, followed by a loud gurgling sound as blood appeared in midair, and then the body hit the floor with an invisible thud.

"That was so cool!" Michael exclaimed. "Kill another one of those guys!"

Ignoring Michael, Sarge dropped to his knees and turned Kelly over onto her back. The front of her shirt was covered in blood, too. Her eyes fluttered opened and she looked up at Sarge. "I guess I didn't get to return the favor. I should have tried getting stabbed saving you."

Sarge chuckled humorlessly. "You drove us here. That counts for something."

She smiled, and then she reached up and twisted her fingers around the collar of Sarge's tee shirt. "We're not saving the world here, but for some reason this, this feels important. I don't even get it. These guys are assholes."

"We all have our reasons for being here," Sarge replied. He jerked a thumb to his chest. "Loyalty. You never leave a man behind."

"Yeah, I missed that lesson." With the last of her energy, Kelly pulled herself up and pressed a kiss to Sarge's mouth. She released his shirt and fell back against the floor.

Sarge took a breath and gently closed Kelly's eyes with his fingertips. He looked up at Michael. "No one else is going to die today. Except for Chiefs."

"Gasp! The Chief!" Michael replied.

"No, Michael, Chiefs," Sarge said. He got that tone Dan got a lot of the time, like he was tired. "The rest of them."

"No, the Chief," Michael insisted, pointing over Sarge's head.

Sarge got up and turned, and there, standing in the shadows of the tall statues, was the Chief.

* * *

Dan was grateful that he hadn't been knocked out this time. He wasn't sure if he could physically take it twice in two days. However, that meant being aware and awake for everything that was happening to him. There were some downsides to that. But it was better being alive.

Dan had never been formally introduced to any of the Chiefs that time he cooked them a dinner they didn't eat, but he recognized some of them them when he saw them and heard their names. The woman who had him, she was Anastasia Ratspukin. She dragged him into a room on the second floor. She was surprisingly strong for a woman so small, though it was also possible that Dan was just weak. She shoved him against a wall and said, "Take off your clothes."

" _What_?" Dan asked, instinctively covering his chest, though he was still fully clothed. There was a dog, a Chihuahua, sitting on the floor, watching them with keen awareness. More than a dog should be aware. "No! What does me being naked have to do with anything?"

"It has to do with everything," she replied, and then grabbed him again. She pushed him over the back of a couch.

"Why do I have to be naked?" Dan asked again as Anastasia pulled down his pants and underwear in one motion. They pooled around his ankles, his shoes still on. "Can't we just do this clothed?"

"Silence!" Anastasia snapped, and slapped his ass. Dan gasped, but otherwise kept his mouth closed. "It is time to make an example."

"Example?" Dan squeaked, and she slapped him again. He clamped his jaw shut just to keep her from doing that again. He tried to remember something Sarge had said years ago about the Chiefs. Didn't they have sex with everything? Was he about to be raped?

He wondered what the others were doing. Had the invisible assassins shown up? Would anyone know if they had? He had no idea the power and abilities of the Chiefs. His friends could be downstairs dying for all he knew. And what was he doing? Being kidnapped and stripped naked. Again. What the hell. It wasn't even a question anymore, it was an emotion.

Anastasia dropped her hand between his legs and fondled his balls.

"Jesus Christ!" Dan yelped, unable to control himself from doing otherwise. Her hands were _cold_. "If you want me dead, just kill me! Just..." He paused and took a deep breath. His pulse was pounding in his ears, and he could feel heat from embarrassment and maybe a little from arousal creeping to every inch of his body. "Please don't kill Michael, please. I know he's a pain in the ass, and he's stupid, and crazy, and dangerous, but he means well. He really does. If you leave him with Sarge or someone, he'll be okay. He doesn't even know how to write, so just keep him away from a computer. They can do that."

He wasn't sure if they could. It had been established somewhere along the way that he was the only one who had any control over Michael, though he had no idea how that was possible. He was just wandering around with this crazy person and there was something about the two of them together, something that made sense in a world made up of nothing but ridiculous insanity. Dan didn't even know what it was like to have a normal life anymore, but a part of him, most of him, maybe even all of him, wouldn't give up all this fucking crazy.

He finally admitted that he was in love, and he was going to do everything he could to save it. Outside of staying alive himself, all he wanted was for Michael to survive. Ideally, they would live together for as long as they could, but "as long as they could" was seeming more and more like "the next ten minutes" and little else.

"You," Anastasia said, running her fingernails over the particularly squishy part of Dan's ass, "think too loudly."

A shiver ran up Dan's spine. "How does someone think loudly? Do you read minds? Can you read minds? Is that a thing you do?"

Anastasia didn't reply. Instead, she rubbed her hands over his sides, and a sensation unlike anything Dan had ever felt started first at his waist, where her hands were, and it worked its way out, up through his chest and down his legs. It was cold first, but then it began to burn. It was a cold burn, like holding an ice cube in your mouth too long, except it was everywhere and he couldn't spit out the ice.

"Oh, shit," Dan muttered through chattering teeth. He looked down at his hands and they were glowing bright blue. Was all of him blue? Was currently naked from waist to ankles. That couldn't be attractive, but it couldn't get worse.

It got worse.

The cold was cut through by something warm running down his leg. Dan looked down with horror to realize he was pissing himself, and he couldn't stop himself. "What the--"

"Oh." Anastasia bent over to inspect the flow of urine. "That happens sometimes. Your mortal frame can only handle so much. It's normal."

"Normal? _Normal?_ I can't stop!"

"It stops on its own." She patted his ass, almost comfortingly.

The carpet around Dan's feet and the jeans around his ankles were beginning to get soggy. "This is the worst," he muttered, but he was afraid to assume that it wouldn't get even worse after this. Every time he thought something like that, all it did was get worse. Nope, it could definitely get worse. It always could.

He really hoped the others were faring better than he was.

* * *

"What the hell are you doing here?" Sarge demanded, charging the Chief hard. "Where in the fresh hell did you come from? You weren't supposed to be here!"

"It seemed like the sort of thing I should be at," the Chief replied. "Do we need an info-dump? Is that important to the plot?"

"No, it's not," Sarge snapped. "Everyone knows what's going on. There's no back story left. We have to rescue Dan, because that's all I ever do, and -- god damn it, make yourself useful and bring Kelly back to life, will you?"

"Oh. Easy." The Chief didn't move, or even flick a wrist. He just stood there, and after a moment, Kelly gasped back to life.

She sat upright, clutching her chest. She looked around, and Sarge dropped by her side. She grabbed his hand. "How long was I dead?"

"A minute, tops," he replied.

"That's.... shorter than I thought. Time moves differently in the afterlife. That was more like a year of being dead."

Sarge raised his eyebrows. "There's an afterlife? Was it Hell?"

"No, it was more like... did you ever see _The Labyrinth_? It was all a giant maze, and there were all these weird creatures. And a man put his giant pants-bulge in my face. It might have been the devil."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Then nevermind." Kelly's eyes settled on the Chief. "Who's that? As if this couldn't get any weirder. And I'm saying that. I once had sex with a shark ray."

"That's the Chief. He's Michael's -- where's Michael?" Sarge looked around and Michael was nowhere to be seen. "This house is huge, he could be anywhere."

"He'll be fine," the Chief said. "If he hasn't died yet, he probably won't."

"He probably went looking for Dan," Kelly said, and she got to her feet. She popped her neck as she dusted off her backside with her hands. "We just need to head in the same direction. Let's go."

It was surprisingly easy to track Michael through the house. All they had to do was follow the trail of grape jam that had been smeared along the walls. No one knew how Michael got jam on his hands in the first place. He might have had a sandwich in his pocket the whole time.

The jam led them upstairs and into a bathroom that had a gold-plated toilet. Michael was sitting on the floor with his legs crossed. He had a computer sitting on his lap. "I'm lost," he said to the computer. "And my hands are sticky. Do you know why?"

"Your hands are covered in jam," Sarge said. "How did that even happen?"

Michael dropped the computer as he scrambled to his feet. "You found me! I went looking for Dan, but then I got lost. This house is ginormous. Did you know there's an expressway in the back yard."

"This house is in the middle of nowhere," Kelly said.

"It's not being used. It's just there to look impressive. Also, I killed a guy. And there's a ghost in the computer, and it wants to talk to you, Chief." Michael spun around. "Where'd it go?"

"Ghosts always do," the Chief replied as he pushed past Sarge and Kelly to get Michael. He picked the computer up off the floor. The screen was black. "Is this damn thing on?"

**It's on.** The words typed themselves across the screen in bright green lettering, like a computer from the 80's. **Chief, it's me, C-Note. I defeated Amandica84 and I've taken over the system. What do you need me to do?**

"Find Dan and lead us to him," the Chief said.

There was a long pause on the computer and only the sound of the the computer whirring, possibly thinking. **Are you sure that's something you want to do?** C-Note asked finally.

The Chief shrugged. "We probably should."

**If you insist. He's in a sitting room on the west wing. There's a couple Chiefs in there with him.**

"Thanks, C-Note. You got them here alive and intact, so thanks. What are you going to do now?"

**Live forever on the internet. It's not the same as living forever with a body, but there's a lot of porn. I'll be all right.**

"I'll send some dogs out for your body. If we can fix bullet holes, we can fix a little rust. We'll get it worked out. Watch out for viruses."

**Thanks, sir.**

The screen went black. C-Note was gone. With a sigh, the Chief closed the laptop and slid it into the ivory sink. "It's time to prepare for the final battle."

Sarge grinned as he brandished his combat knife. "That's my favorite kind."

"Are we going to go find Dan?" Michael asked.

"We're going to go find Dan," the Chief confirmed. "And then we're going to kill some Chiefs. And then I'll eat their hearts."

Michael blinked. "I shouldn't be surprised that's a thing you do, but it's still pretty gross. And I'm saying that. And does anyone know how to get my hands to stop being so sticky?"

"We're in a bathroom, Michael," the Chief replied, placing a hand to his forehead. "Just wash your hands."

"This is a _bathroom_? I guess I shouldn't have peed in that fountain, then. No, that was a good thing. I should pee in more fountains."

"Jesus Christ." Kelly grabbed Michael by the ear and dragged him out of the room. "Let's get the fuck out of this fever dream so I can go home."

* * *

The flow of urine finally stopped and Dan sagged against the couch with relief. It wasn't often that _not_ peeing was more relief than actually peeing.

"Is it done?" Dan asked, sounding more panicked than he meant to, his voice muffled from being planted face first in the back of the couch. "Is it over?"

Anastasia slapped his ass, and this time it left his backside stinging. Maybe it was the blue stuff, or maybe she just smacked him one too many times, but it was like pain coursing through him, all over. Like that first few seconds when you try to stand up after your foot's fallen asleep, except it went on and on and on.

Dan closed his eyes. Someone was going to notice he was missing, right? No, that was probably too much to ask of them. Perhaps, if he was lucky, it was like the worst possible thing. If you thought you'd hit rock bottom, it would only get worse. But maybe if he gave up hope now, someone would prove him wrong.

He was drooling and didn't realize it until he felt the coolness of it against his cheek. Just like his pillow at home. Or in a tent. Or on the upholstery in the stolen van.

Anastasia pushed his shirt up his back and over his head, but he refused to wriggle out of it, so the back of his shirt was now bunched up under his chin. "What is this?"

"What?" Dan twisted around as much as he could to look at her. "That? I had that mole looked at. The doctor said it was fine."

"No, this." She poked his shoulder hard.

"Yow!" Dan jumped, but her grip on him was too strong for him to move far. All that happened was his shirt slid down his arms and tangled around his wrists. "What are you even -- you mean where Michael bit me?"

It had been less than a week since Dan had been in the apartment in New York with Michael, but it seemed like months. He hadn't forgotten the last time he had sex in a bed, when Michael chewed his shoulder raw. He hadn't given it much thought since he admired the wound in the mirror before heading off to work. It had scabbed over a bit, but he'd had other things on his mind since then.

"He marked you?" Anastasia asked. "You're his?"

"We're... ours. Boyfriends." The word felt weird in Dan's mouth, like too sour candy, but it was better than being seen as Michael's property, though he might have been just that since long before they came to the east coast. "He just bit me. He does that sometimes. He'd do it to you, too, if he had the chance."

The chihuahua barked, and Anastasia backed away from Dan. "I cannot touch you."

"Wait, what?" Dan backed away from the couch and stumbled to get his damp pants back up around his waist. "Because Michael bit me?" He probably should have been glad that he wasn't being fondled anymore, since it was getting increasingly uncomfortable, but there were some unfortunate implications happening now.

"He has claimed you. You're his."

Yeah, that's what he was afraid of. "No, really, he doesn't own me. I take care of _him_." As the words were coming out of his mouth, Dan was pretty sure he should have been encouraging this. Were they going to let him go? But, damn, he didn't want to be seen as Michael's property. Dan was aware of the condition of Michael's car and home back in LA. He didn't want to be in the same league as the house with the sticky floors and the car with a homeless woman in the back seat.

Anastasia's face turned a pale shade of blue. "I didn't know!"

Dan pulled his shirt back down over his torso. "What the hell is going on?"

But she wasn't talking to him anymore. Dan turned around and there was a man standing behind him, and he totally wasn't there a minute ago. "Holy mackerel! Were you there the whole time?"

He wasn't paying attention to Dan, either. He was looking right at Anastasia, and once the shock had worn off, Dan recognized him as one of the Chiefs. What was his name? Demonshadow Ghoststalker? Or was it the other way around? He only heard the names once.

_You know our laws_ , the man said, but not with words. It wasn't even as though Dan could hear him in his head. It was more like he was hearing the impression of the words.

"Swaim is not a Chief," Anastasia insisted. "He's a half-breed!"

_You do not take of one who has been claimed by another. He has the blood of a Chief in him. We've already seen him murder one of us in his rage. We do not want to lose another. Let the human go._

"The human," Dan repeated. "That's me, right?"

No one said anything to him, but the dog barked again.

_Yes_ , the man replied in agreement as Anastasia continued to appear worried, her face growing a darker blue. _This will not look good on your performance review._

"You're afraid of Michael," Dan realized slowly. "He killed Donald over _chocolate_. I think. But you have no idea what he'd do if he found out she'd been touching me. He might just kill you all."

It seemed Dan's words were finally important. Anastasia, the chihuahua, and Ghostdemon Shadowstalker all looked at him like he hadn't been standing there the whole time.

He guessed right. He thought it might be wise to not mention that Michael constantly encouraged him to sleep with other people. Maybe he would react differently if he knew it wasn't consensual? Dan couldn't be sure. Michael had a weird definition of consent.

"So you guys mark whatever you're fucking so the rest of you won't fuck it, too?" Dan was on a roll. He wasn't usually right this much. "What happens if Michael finds out?"

_The laws have been in place for millions of years. Ever since that situation with the dinosaurs,_ the man said, looking almost sheepish.

"You killed the dinosaurs?" Dan cried. He paused. "Which one of you was fucking a dinosaur?"

The chihuahua barked again, and Dan didn't even want to know how that was supposed to work. But weren't there little dinosaurs, too? Maybe it wasn't that weird.

"If I don't tell Michael about what happened, will you let us go? No killing involved? I don't want to die, and I really don't want Michael to die. So maybe we can forget this whole thing ever happened?" Dan wasn't sure if he should be bargaining with gods, but it was worth a shot. "We just want our lives back, and I don't think you want Michael killing anyone else."

There was silence in the room, and then Stalkerdemon Ghostshadow said, _That is agreeable, as long as Swaim agrees not to write again._

"That's agreeable. Michael doesn't actually know how to write."

The doors burst open and in stumbled Michael and Sarge, both covered in blood, along with Kelly and, somehow still in shadow in the rather well lit room, the Chief.

"Chief!" Dan exclaimed. "What are you doing here? I thought you'd be holed up in the Himalayas or something. I'm mad at you! You should have told us what was going on!"

"Yeah, sorry about that," the Chief replied. "But we're here to rescue you now."

"Oh, no need," Dan said. He motioned to the Chiefs around him. "We worked it out. We can go."

"No fighting?" Kelly asked. She sounded disappointed.

"Nope." He grinned, pleased with himself. "We talked it out and they're letting us go. We don't even need to be in hiding anymore. We're free to leave."

"I thought you were dead!" Michael cried as he pushed past the Chief to get to Dan. He threw his arms around Dan's neck and then pulled away. "You smell like pee. Did I do that? Was it me?"

"No, it wasn't. Not this time. There was a slight urination incident," Dan replied, his smile now gone. He took Michael's hand. "Can we just get out of here?"

"You _peed_ yourself?" Sarge asked, and he took a step backwards.

"Sort of. Not on purpose," Dan said, and instantly realized that was stupid. No one peed themselves on purpose. Well, most people didn't anyway. He wasn't sure about Michael. "Let's not talk about it. I want to go."

The Chief stepped forward, getting right up in Anastasia's space. "What did you do? Did you touch him? He is _Michael's_."

"What?" Michael asked, and Dan shook his head to shush him.

"Do remember what happened the last time?" the Chief demanded.

"What the fuck do we need dinosaurs for anyway? They would not survive into today's world. T-Rex isn't going to business school!" Anastasia exclaimed, her face so blue it was bordering on purple.

"We don't know that! They could have if we had given them the chance!" Shouting this way, the Chief's voice seemed to fill the room completely. Dan covered his ears, afraid that his eardrums might burst.

Anastasia covered her ears, too, scrunching her eyes closed.

"Uh oh," the Chief said in a lower voice.

"What?" Dan asked. "Uh oh what? No uh oh."

"I've seen this before," the Chief replied. "We should go. Run. Run now."

Anastasia began to scream, and it was louder and more ear-splitting than anything Dan had ever heard before. He plugged index fingers into his ears, but nothing could even muffle the sound. It was a sound he would hear in his dreams for years to come, that would wake him up in the middle of the night and leave him shaking.

Dan couldn't make his legs move, but Michael grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the room as he chased after the others. Dan stumbled, his feet literally pulling behind him until he was able to get his legs working.

"We can't go out the front!" Kelly shouted, though Dan could barely hear her through the screaming and his plugged ears. "The mines! And there's no time!"

"The expressway!" Michael shouted, but that didn't make any sense to Dan since he didn't realize that he missed part of another conversation. "We can steal a car! I know how to do that! Dan, where are your keys?"

Dan hadn't had a car since they were in LA, but he didn't say anything about it. Instead he asked. "Where's this expressway?"

"Follow me!" Michael shouted, and Dan had no choice but to trust him. It might have been the scariest thing Dan had ever done.

The ground began to shake as they ran down the massive staircase. The statues toppled over, and they had to climb over them. The sound of Anastasia's screams were no quieter now that they were on the ground floor.

"Come on!" Michael said, grasping Dan's hand as he pulled him over the carved statue that was surprisingly splintery. Dan's other hand was pricked and bloody and he could feel the little slivers of wood under his skin. Michael wrapped his hand around Dan's wrist to keep him steady as he dropped to the shaking floor on the other side.

They ran, Dan keeping his hand clasped in Michael's. Dan was fast, but Michael's legs were longer, so it was hard to keep up.

The roof began to collapse, and Dan thought he heard Kelly scream. If she was screaming, then it couldn't be anything good, so he didn't look. If she fell behind, there was nothing they could do.

"It's this way!" Michael shouted (or at least that's what Dan thought he heard, but actually Michael said, "This is so gay!", though it couldn't be said for certain if it was about the situation or the hand-holding, but let's be honest, both were true).

Somehow, the further away they got, the louder the screams were. They ran through the kitchen and Dan's ear felt like they were going to explode or fall off. It didn't get quieter as they ran out the door, but instead, the house exploded.

Dan and Michael fell to the ground in a heap. Dan lay there for a moment, listening to his pulse pounding in his ears. He dropped an arm across Michael's chest to make sure he was still breathing, too. Of course he was.

"Is it over?" Dan asked. He sat up and gaze at the house. The flames lit up the sky and it was beautiful.

"For now," said the Chief, and his deep voice was soothing instead of terrifying this time. "I don't think they'll come after you again. Not for a long time, anyway."

Michael took Dan's hand. It was the one with the splinters in it, and it hurt, but Dan didn't care. This was their _Fight Club_ moment. He could almost hear The Pixies playing in the background.

"I can't believe I'm alive," Dan said. "I was so sure I was going to die."

"I wouldn't let that happen," Michael said, and he kissed Dan on the mouth. It was sloppy and wet, and Dan couldn't have been happier.

* * *

_Three Months Later_

Dan hit save on his file and closed his laptop. He smiled as he looked out the window at the ocean. He'd missed writing, and he'd even missed the west coast. Really, what he missed was being able to do what he wanted. He didn't have to work a shitty job slinging pizza. He ran his own website now. It wasn't very popular, but it was enough to pay the bills for their little beach-side house.

Michael burst through the front door. "Look what we got!"

"If it's another dead cat, I don't want it," Dan replied before turning away from the window. The peace and quiet could only last so long.

"That was a beautiful wreath, Daniel. And it was a gift. No, this is a postcard from Kelly and the Sarge." Michael handed the postcard to Dan.

"Why would they send us a postcard?" Dan wondered as he took it.

"How else would we know that they were still alive?"

The front of the postcard had a picture of a deserted city. It looked like a bomb had dropped on it, some of buildings only half there. Dan squinted and in some of the windows he could see the outlines of faces. Across the bottom in a pleasant script were the words, _wish you were here_. Written on the back, however, in black marker, it said, _NO WE DON'T._

It didn't have their names on it, but who else would it be from? And where do you get postcards of bomb-devastated cities? He shrugged and set the postcard aside.

"Good to know their romance is alive," Michael said. He plopped down in Dan's lap and wrapped his arms around Dan's neck.

"Yeah, because I was so worried about that." Dan tried not to sound bitter. Sure, Sarge ended up with every girl he'd ever liked, but Dan got the love he wanted. Sometimes he had to remind himself of that, like now, when his legs were going numb and Michael's breath smelled like nachos.

Dan turned his head away and pressed his face into Michael's shoulder. He smelled like the ocean, and that was what Dan wanted. It was strange to think about. Dan always assumed he'd be miserable in one way or another, but instead, he was happy. He almost couldn't believe it. In the weirdest, stupidest, most convoluted way possible, Dan got everything he wanted.


End file.
